# Why is 2^63 negative?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-is-2-63-negative/48513>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** integer-overflow\
**Created:** [October 16, 2020, 7:18pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-is-2-63-negative/48513 "2020-10-16T19:18:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 8

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**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 8:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-is-2-63-negative/48513/8 "2020-10-16T20:48:35Z")

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And we do this for the same reason: this is the behavior of our machines’ integers. It’s the fastest behavior possible. Doing anything else requires extra operations to emulate some different sort of behavior.

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