From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109d8a,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid109d8a,public X-Google-Thread: 107079,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid107079,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: f8362,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gidf8362,public From: Dave Sparks Subject: Re: floating point comparison Date: 1997/08/07 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 262907989 References: <33E61497.33E2@pseserv3.fw.hac.com> <33E6D359.3EF4@imbi.uni-freiburg.de> <33E74A62.53E2@pseserv3.fw.hac.com> <5sar4r$t7m$1@cnn.nas.nasa.gov> X-Attribution: DaveS X-Lines: 31 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: sisyphus.demon.co.uk [158.152.61.247] Organization: to be supplied Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,sci.math.num-analysis,comp.software-eng,comp.theory,sci.math Date: 1997-08-07T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: >>>>> "CLK" == Chris L Kuszmaul writes: CLK> In article <33E74A62.53E2@pseserv3.fw.hac.com> "W. Wesley Groleau CLK> x4923" writes: >> What I'm trying to say is that it should be possible to come up with >> a few simple guidelines that cover most cases, and a guideline for >> identifying the cases that require a mathematician--excuse me, a >> numerical analyst. >> CLK> Fair enough. There are two basic guidlines I follow: CLK> ... CLK> Also CLK> 3: If you just do multiplication and division, then it is hard to mess CLK> up. But I've seen a program where one of the inputs was a temperature in degrees Centigrade, in the range 10 to 50 with no fractional part. The calculated results were displayed to six decimal places - very misleading. The calculation was accurate, but the results were no more precise than the inputs. It's wrong to assume that simple numerical analysis is so easy that anyone can do it. -- Dave Sparks, Staffordshire, England