# Why does scientific notation break the range function?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-scientific-notation-break-the-range-function/80014>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Created:** [April 25, 2022, 8:46pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-scientific-notation-break-the-range-function/80014 "2022-04-25T20:46:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 40

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**Author:** ![chadagreene](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/chadagreene/32/34924_2.png) [@chadagreene](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/chadagreene)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2022, 3:58pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-scientific-notation-break-the-range-function/80014/40 "2022-04-26T15:58:26Z")

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> [@Frustrated with frustrated beginners](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/frustrated-with-frustrated-beginners/80067/20):
>
> But on reflection, wasn’t the error message actually pretty _good_ ?

No, it’s terrible! The “useful” part of the error message, `Union{Nothing, Integer}` is a far too cryptic way to say, “Hey buddy, use a dang Integer instead of a Float!”

And I’m not trying to be a troll here, but I actually _still_ can’t mentally parse what `Union{Nothing, Integer}` is actually saying. All users can do is try to figure it out from the words that are there. I tried entering it into the REPL and it returned `Union{Nothing, Integer}`. I tried searching the help docs for `Nothing` because that part is very confusing, and this is what I got:

```julia
help?> Nothing
search: Nothing nothing isnothing

  Nothing

  A type with no fields that is the type of nothing.

  See also: isnothing, Some, Missing.

```

Sorry to revert back to insults, but it’s a lousy, no-good error message! 🙂

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