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Re: Numerical accuracy/precision - this is a bug or a feature?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg120115] Re: Numerical accuracy/precision - this is a bug or a feature?
• From: DrMajorBob <btreat1 at austin.rr.com>
• Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2011 04:56:27 -0400 (EDT)

This happens in EVERY language that converts decimal (real) input to  
binary storage.

Binary storage is not mathematically required, but the result is MUCH  
faster code. Perhaps, at some point, we'll abandon this trade-off when  
computers are so fast that the gain in speed isn't worth the confusion.  
But that day isn't here, yet.

(Well. It is for ME, but not for a lot of other, very impatient people. If  
they can get a result in a second with decimal arithmetic, they'd rather  
have it in a microsecond with binary arithmetic, no matter WHAT the cost  
in confusion factors.)

Bobby

On Thu, 07 Jul 2011 06:31:49 -0500, slawek <slawek at host.pl> wrote:

>
> U=BFytkownik "Kevin J. McCann" <Kevin.McCann at umbc.edu> napisa=B3 w  
> wiadomo=B6ci
> grup dyskusyjnych:iv1a86$sji$1 at smc.vnet.net...
>> 2.0 is not an integer nor a rational, it is machine precision. On the
>> other hand 2 is an integer and exact.
>
> The decimal fraction 2.0 is in mathematics (the science) exactly the  
> same as
> the sum 2 + 0/10
>
> The convention that 2.0 is less accurate than 2.00 is applied ONLY in
> Mathematica (the computer program).
>
>
>
>


-- 
DrMajorBob at yahoo.com