Subject: Performance of the logarithm algorithm on bfloats
From: Sean Lake
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2010 18:15:27 -0700
Hello all,
On a whim I used big floats to calculate exp( 1 / bfloat(1.3806505e-23) ). The answer I got was 2.198035052553252b31455787102040073147561. When I tried to invert the operation, however, the result was incredibly slow. Naturally, when I performed the operation as: log(2.198035052553252) + 31455787102040073147561 * log(10), numer; the result computed basically instantaneously. Is there a reason that Maxima doesn't utilize this algorithm in performing such computations?
Sean