Vector3 component values different than values from whole Vector3

OK, in all my years of Unity dev, I've never seen something so f-ed up. Somebody help me dear lord.

From this code:

Code (CSharp):

1.    
2. void FixedUpdate()
3. {
4.         Vector3 noseVelocityLocal = noseRB.transform.InverseTransformDirection(noseRB.velocity);
5.         Debug.Log(noseVelocityLocal + " y: " + noseVelocityLocal.y);
6. }
7.  

Prints this in the console:
(0.0, 0.0, 0.0) y: -5.67577E-07

How in the world is this even possible
the y component by itself is different than the y component in the vector3 as a whole, how?!!!!

 

The default

.ToString()

method for

Vector3

only displays one decimal place.

The default

.ToString()

method for

float

shows you more precision

In any case,

float

quantities should NEVER be compared for equality due to floating point imprecision.

Google that up and you'll see why.

Instead, compare for less than and/or greater than (crossing threshholds), or for being within a certain difference (such as with Mathf.Approximately())

 

Yes I am aware of both of those things, but did you look at my code? I'm not doing an equality comparison, and the difference between the Vector3 output and the y component output is not just precision, it's whole numbers. Like what?!

The reason I found this is because I'm doing some physics adjustments and I need to get just the Y, do some changes on it, and then apply it again, but once I do that the numbers are crazy.

 

Actually... that is a form of scientific notation called "E Notation":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_notation

-5.67577E-07 means -5.67577 times (10 raised to the -7 power)

so -5.67577 divided by 10,000,000 ... that is a veeeeeeery tiny number, not at all a whole number.

Or just shift the decimal place left 7 places, inserting zeros... I'm not gonna try and type it.

 

I see ok I didn't realize that, me feel foolish, my physics bug must be originating elsewhere then