16:46 >perl -wE "my $cube_root = (-8)**(1/3); say $cube_root;" NaN 16:46 >perl -v This is perl 5, version 32, subversion 1 (v5.32.1) built for MSWin32-x64-multi-thread #### sub cube_root { my ($n) = @_; return (abs( $n ) ** (1 / 3)) * ($n < 0 ? -1 : 1); }