Is there a standard way to convert between the two forms in memory then? .8
<-> 4/5 , -8.14 <-> -814/100?
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 9:19 PM, Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu>wrote:
> Just to continue on this theme, if you treat 0.8 as the exact number 4/5,
> then sin(0.8) can't be simplified or evaluated to an approximate result
> (0.717...), which seems to be what most users want....
>
> -s
>
> On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 17:26, Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu>wrote:
>
>> The Maxima convention (which is followed by most systems I know) is that
>> numbers expressed with a decimal point are interpreted as floating-point
>> numbers. It would of course be possible to change that decision, but the
>> next question then would be what the output form of such objects is: if 0.8
>> is interpreted as 8/10 (= 4/5), should it be output as 0.8? 8/10? or 4/5?
>> What is the output form of 0.8 + 1/10? How about 0.8 + 1/3? And how
>> about 0.8 + 1/3 - 11/15?
>>
>> -s
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 14:51, Andrew Davis <glneolistmail at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> I understand all that it is not exact
>>> > At first I thought it was just rounding error on display
>>>
>>> but why is it not held in memory symbolically so that it can be
>>> factored and manipulated correctly.
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 12:47 PM, Raymond Toy <toy.raymond at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 1/29/12 9:34 AM, Andrew Davis wrote:
>>>> > Hello all,
>>>> >
>>>> > While doing some homework, maxima return some incorrect limits. I
>>>> traced
>>>> > the problem back to the number -8.14. It is evaluated to
>>>> > -8.140000000001, you can test this yourself by taking the limit of
>>>> > (-8.14+1) as x approaches any number, or just evaluate 1-8.14. This
>>>> > happens on all clisp's and even on http://calc.matthen.com/ ,
>>>> (evaluate
>>>> > -8.14). At first I thought it was just rounding error on display and
>>>> > not internal stored like that, but take a limit that uses -8.14 and
>>>> you
>>>> > will have undefined results where it should have a real limit
>>>> > ( because -8.14 can be factored in my problem but -8.14000001 could
>>>> not
>>>> > ). This is the only number I found that does that, but I suspect more.
>>>>
>>>> This, and questions like it, are becoming a FAQ. If you want exact
>>>> numbers, use exact numbers instead of floating-point. So use 814/100
>>>> instead. 8.14 cannot be represented exactly as (binary) floating-point
>>>> number. In fact 8.14 differs from 814/100 by 1/1759218604441600.
>>>>
>>>> Also read "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About
>>>> Floating-Point Arithmetic", by David Goldberg. Google will find
>>>> suitable versions.
>>>>
>>>> Ray
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>