Re: //N bug, but WHY?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg58659] Re: //N bug, but WHY?
- From: dh <dh at metrohm.ch>
- Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 05:21:42 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <data3n$mec$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi, your expression consists of a sum with 2 terms that have opposite signs and nearly the same magnitude. The absolute value is of the order of 10^41 and the difference 10^-41. Therefore, if you calculate with machine precision= 16 digits, this is doomed to fail. On the other hand, the help for N[] is partly wrong. Consider the help: "N[expr] is equivalent to N[expr, MachinePrecision]" a=10^16+1; b=10^16; N[a-b] gives 1. because the argument of N is evaluated with infinite precision before N sees it. We can prevent this by wrapping a and b in a function that can not be evaluated with infinite precision: a=Sqrt[10^16+1]; b=Sqrt[10^16]; N[a-b] gives 0. because 10^16+1 is now evaluated with machine precision giving 10^16. On the other hand, N[a-b,16] gives 5.00.. 10^-9, here it seems that the intermediate calulations are done with higher precision, exactly what the help says. Even N[a-b,1] gives 5. 10^-9 In short: N[expr] does all calculation in machine precision, whereas N[expr,number] does all intermediate calculation with high enough (up to an upper Limit of "$MaxExtraPrecision") precision to garantee a result precision of "number" sincerely, Daniel symbio wrote: > Evaluating (using //N) two exact same expressions, gives wrong answer unless > fullsimplify is used first, I spent 2 days on a problem thinking my answer > was wrong, but turned out Mathematica 5 was giving me buggy answers, I > debugged it to this point, but WHY in the world is this happening? Please > help!!! > > cut and paste below to see the test case: > > In[243]:= > \!\(\(Cosh[\(43\ \[Pi]\)\/\@2] + \((1 - Cosh[43\ \@2\ \[Pi]])\)\ Csch[ > 43\ \@2\ \[Pi]]\ Sinh[\(43\ \[Pi]\)\/\@2] // FullSimplify\) // > N\[IndentingNewLine] > Cosh[\(43\ \[Pi]\)\/\@2] + \((1 - Cosh[43\ \@2\ \[Pi]])\)\ Csch[ > 43\ \@2\ \[Pi]]\ Sinh[\(43\ \[Pi]\)\/\@2] // N\) > Out[243]= > \!\(6.551787517854307`*^-42\) > Out[244]= > \!\(\(-1.9342813113834067`*^25\)\) > > > > thanks, >