C Floating point arithmetic

Ken Turkowski ken at turtlevax.UUCP
Wed Dec 4 09:55:10 AEST 1985


>> Any intelligent scientific programmer trys it both ways
>> on his own and determines whether single precision is adequate
>> (without the help of a numerical analyst, an analyst is consulted
>> when one wants to understand the root of the problem in an attempt
>> to rearrange the computation so that single precision is sufficient
>> should it fail).  .... more stuff, largely irrelevant .....

And suppose that the numerical analyst says that double precision
isn't enough precision regardless of the ordering of the computation;
what do you do then?

Check out:

Linnainmaa, Seppo
"Software for Doubled-Precision Floating-Point Computations",
ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software,
Vol. 7, No. 3, Sept 1981, pp. 272-283

-- 
Ken Turkowski @ CIMLINC, Menlo Park, CA
UUCP: {amd,decwrl,hplabs,seismo,spar}!turtlevax!ken
ARPA: turtlevax!ken at DECWRL.DEC.COM



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