4 ms·
>for if our calculators and computers calculated logarithms inaccurately, as well as exponentials, trig functions, and square roots, to name but a few, a lot of
by constantcrying 2y ago
>for if our calculators and computers calculated logarithms inaccurately, as well as exponentials, trig functions, and square roots, to name but a few, a lot of scientific and engineering work would be broken and end in catastrophe.
I think I have some news for the writer of the article.
- bongodongobob 2y agoWait until they learn about floating point.
- stephencanon 2y agoWhat are they going to learn? That’s it’s by far the best fixed-size approximation to real number arithmetic we have, sufficient for essentially all of our scientific and engineering needs?
- bongodongobob 2y agoI know that, but there are assumptions you cannot make about equivalence etc. So if he's commenting on inaccuracies of numbers, he may find that surprising. Tough crowd, sheesh.
- account42 2y ago> That’s it’s by far the best fixed-size approximation to real number arithmetic we have (*) * for some use cases (**) ** conditions apply
- constantcrying 2y agoBesides what you said (which I mostly agree with), that floating point calculations can at times be extremely counter intuitive, weird and totally inaccurate. While a single floating point operation gives you the best possible floating point result, the error for two consecutive floating point operations is unbounded. They need to be treated carefully and people need to be aware of their shortcomings. You would be surprised how often I have seen even people here getting hung up over the fact that floating point numbers aren't behaving identically to real numbers.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kps 2y ago“It would be better to never make a dime of profit than to have a product out there with a problem.” (Today, the generator attached to David Packard powers half of California.)