5.2. Basic Operations on Numbers
The normal operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are implemented in Ruby much as in the typical programming language with the operators +, -, *, and /. Most of the operators are actually methods (and therefore can be overridden).
Exponentiation (raising to a power) is done with the ** operator as in older languages such as BASIC and FORTRAN. It obeys the “normal” mathematical laws of exponentiation.
a = 64**2 # 4096 b = 64**0.5 # 8.0 c = 64**0 # 1 d = 64**-1 # 0.015625
Division of one integer by another results in a truncated integer. This is a feature, not a bug. If you need a floating point number, make sure that at least one operand is a floating point.
3 / 3 # 3 5 / 3 # 1 3 / 4 ...
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