Why does MATLAB only calculate to 4 significant digits?

I only see 4 significant figures:

>>2/3

ans = 

    0.6667

Answer 1

[Doug Hull]

It doesn't. It uses full double-precision floating point numbers to calculate everything. By default it only prints a few decimal places to the screen. You can change this using the command:

>>format long

Type:

>>doc format

for more information.

[From the MATLAB FAQ of ancient times...]