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Re: Odd behavior?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg101886] Re: Odd behavior?
  • From: Richard Fateman <fateman at cs.berkeley.edu>
  • Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:21:31 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <200907191115.HAA20885@smc.vnet.net> <h41f90$rmb$1@smc.vnet.net>

I agree with DrMajorBob that 0 is the wrong answer, in the context of 
double-float machine-precision arithmetic.  The answer is 
-2^(-53)-2^(-52), or -3.33... d-16 approximately.



That is not the question posted, however.  The question was, what 
changed between version 6 and version 7. (see below)

since I do not currently have a copy of version 7 to play with, I can 
only speculate that (finally!) access to machine-precision arithmetic 
has been improved.  And that the user of Mathematica can view, 
unimpeded, the actual machine arithmetic results, for the first time.


to quote the original question.....
>>
>> Anybody know what changed or what I can do to prevent such poor  
>> solutions (besides forcing a specific order of evaluation)? Thanks.
>>




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