Re: SetPrecision - What does in find?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg48605] Re: SetPrecision - What does in find?
- From: ab_def at prontomail.com (Maxim)
- Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2004 05:33:38 -0400 (EDT)
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There's a glitch in SetPrecision[n,Infinity] though: it doesn't preserve the hidden digits of n. Suppose we have n=1`20/3; Mathematica will generate a number with 40 threes, 20 of which will be significant. Now if we do SetPrecision[n,50], then Mathematica firstly will use the hidden digits and only after that the number will be padded with zeros. This means that SetPrecision[n,50]-1/3 is approximately 10^-40: In[1]:= SetPrecision[1`20/3, 50] - 1/3 // N Out[1]= -9.795786256852395*^-40 This works just as described in the documentation; but if we do SetPrecision[n,Infinity], then only the 20 significant digits are used: In[2]:= SetPrecision[1`20/3, Infinity] - 1/3 // N Out[2]= 5.646886315028669*^-22 Maxim Rytin m.r at inbox.ru