Finding the Largest Integer Cube Root Less than a Threshold

In this code snippet, the goal is to determine the largest cube root that is a whole number less than 12,000. The code employs a while loop to decrement a variable n until a condition is met.

The condition is expressed as n ** (1/3) ==, where we want to check if the result of taking the cube root of n is an integer. However, the question arises as to how to perform this check.

Checking if a Float is an Integer

To determine if a float value is an integer, Python provides the float.is_integer() method. This method returns True if the float is an integer, and False otherwise.

Applying the float.is_integer() Method

Modifying our code to incorporate the float.is_integer() method, we have:

processing = True
n = 12000
while processing:
    n -= 1
    if n ** (1/3).is_integer():
        processing = False

Accounting for Floating Point Imprecision

It is important to note that floating point arithmetic can be imprecise. As such, we should be cautious when comparing floats for equality.

Checking for Values Close to Integers

If we directly compare n ** (1/3) to an integer, we may miss close approximations due to imprecision. One approach is to check if the cube root is within a small range of an integer, using the math.isclose function or a custom implementation thereof.