f2cl, cernlib, and maxima (Re: [Maxima] Release plans)

James Amundson wrote:

> On Wed, 2002-03-20 at 11:15, Richard Fateman wrote:
> > Back to technicalities:
> >
> >
> > There is a key difference in the numerical software (claims)
> > of Mathematica vs this other stuff.  Mathematica numerics
> >   are all variable-precision, and so one can crank up the
> > accuracy of any of their functions. You should be aware
> > of this.
>
> Good point. I have been quietly worrying about accuracy beyond double
> precision in Maxima, but I don't know what to do about it.
>
> I cannot help but slip into a rant about Mathematica at this point. I
> know Mathematica claims to have variable (is "arbitrary" a better word?)
> precision numerics, but I also remember that in my experience using
> Mathematica, it was only true for some undocumented subset of
> operations. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. I know Mathematica
> will give you 10,000 digits of Pi, but will it give you 50 digits of,
> say, BesselJ[7/13]? How about the rest of the special functions it knows
> about?
>

I'm 100% sure that Mathematica don't have arbitrary precision
alghoritms for all built-in specfunctions.

--
     Vadim V. Zhytnikov

      <vvzhy@mail.ru>
    <vvzhy@td.lpi.ac.ru>
     <vvzhy@yandex.ru>