So recently I was summing up a series of numbers and the summation of the numbers has a very small fractional amount in the total.

Here are the exact numbers I am summing in Excel:

38,416.50
(34,575.30)
(3,841.19)
(0.01)

The expected sum of these numbers is 0, but for some reason Excel (and other online calculations like Wolfram Alpha) calculate this as -2.964952935946563 * 10^-12. Try summing these exact numbers yourself, and see what the outcome is when you run the decimal out as far as you can.

If anyone has an explanation for this, I would finally be able to get some sleep.

Thank you!!