Arithmetic error? Bug? Well, sort of, but no.
Sort of, because at first sight it looks wrong. At least from a purely mathematical perspective and because we kind of think computers are purely methematical. But no, because this is not even a computer issue. Take for example the problem of dividing 1 by 3. The decimal result is 0.333333333... The elipsis (...) indicating that there's an infinite number of repeating digits. If you add the result three times, you get 0.999999999... Funny, isn't it, shouldn't the answer be 1? An engineer or physicist would recognize your problem as converting inches to meters, because of the 0.0254. However, they know how to deal with precision. So the computation would NOT be: 102 +/- 0 * 0.0254 +/- 0 (exact) = 2.5907999999999998 +/- 0 (INACCURATE answer) it would be 102 +/- 0.01 * 0.0254 +/- 0 (exact) = 2.5907999999999998 +/- 0.01 (ACCURATE answer) Notice that the conversion factor, 0.0254 is exact, but the value in inches is not. In this case I've chosen a precision of +/- 0.01 inches. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
