wip on round

[thedavidmeister]

Motivation

Solution

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• made this PR as small as possible
• unit-tested any new functionality
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Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • New explicit errors for negative-base exponentiation and unformatable exponents; clearer error for out-of-bounds table lookups.

• Bug Fixes

  • Exponentiation handles zero/negative bases and negative exponents correctly; combines fast exponentiation with log/exp path for more reliable results.
  • Stronger bounds checks to prevent invalid table accesses.

• Refactor

  • Centralized log-table lookup and reduced table dimensions to streamline interpolation.

• Tests

  • Added and updated deterministic tests and re-baselined metrics.

• Chores

  • Added lint/safety comments and test cleanups.