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: 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: 103376,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: f8362,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gidf8362,public From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: floating point comparison Date: 1997/08/21 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 267783490 Distribution: inet References: <5tc7kl$a19$1@news.fsu.edu> <5theo8$qg7$1@news.fsu.edu> Organization: New York University Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,sci.math.num-analysis,comp.software-eng,comp.theory,sci.math Date: 1997-08-21T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: << So is the process of measurement with a device with less precision than necessary to make the measurement. For example, in your case there is no uncertainty in the integer part of a 14 digit real in a double precision IEEE representation that has been properly rounded, but there is an uncertainty if it was stored as a float.>> I strongly agree with Christian here, uncertainty is an even WORSE term than round off error. A common viewpoint of floating-point arithmetic held by many who don't know too much about it is that somehow floating-point arithmetic is inherently (slightly) unreliable and can't be trusted. The term uncertainty encourages this totally unuseful attitude.