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Ok, so I've been working through some various problems in order to improve at my programming and I've had this question a couple of times and have no idea how to go about it:
'Give a simple algorithm to calculate the accuracy with which the mantissa of a floating point number can be represented'
Basically as I understand it, it wants me to get the computer to test it's own accuracy, which feels a bit paradoxical.
Can anyone help?
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#2
Posted 29 April 2011 - 02:27 PM
WingedPanther
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Well, you could change the last bit in the binary representation, and then subtract that from the original.
#3
Posted 29 April 2011 - 03:02 PM
Alexander
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The significand (or mantissa) can be thought of as the fraction in a scientific notation, in a binary fraction form.
The level of proximity compared to that of a true value can be considered accuracy, so you may compute a value and compare to a reference value, or assume a result (such as Winged Panther's suggestion) and compare the actual computed value to that.
The level of proximity compared to that of a true value can be considered accuracy, so you may compute a value and compare to a reference value, or assume a result (such as Winged Panther's suggestion) and compare the actual computed value to that.
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If a suggested code/method fails, informing us is less important than telling us why or what errors occurred.
If a suggested code/method fails, informing us is less important than telling us why or what errors occurred.
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