--- "Inger, Matthew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The basic reason i inquired is that by using doubles, you're limiting the precision available when doing certain operations. Take the following matrix:
[ 4 6 ] [ 6 14 ]
If you try to take the inverse of that matrix, the correct answer is:
[ 0.7 -0.3 ] [ -0.3 0.2 ]
however, by using double in java, we get something like:
[ 0.7000000000000002 -0.3000000000000001 ] [ -0.3000000000000001 0.20000000000000007 ]
using BigDecimal isntead, we might get a slightly more accurate result (though i admit, in most cases, people won't go to 16 digits)
A valid point, though again, usage will dictate whether such levels of
precision are necessary (also, most usage I've seen just lives with the fact
that most base-10 numbers are not exactly represented in base-2; the inverse
matrix above would probably be considered "close enough" by many if the
difference were explained by representation inaccuracy). Essentially all
numerical computing to date has been done with, at best(!), double precision. Some techniques that could in fact increase precision in principle are, to my
knowledge, never used in practice (e.g., sorting a list of numbers before
summing, so that they can be summed from smallest to largest -- and if there's
a possibility of having both negative and positive signs, summing the
like-signed elements and then finally the resulting two opposite-signed partial
sums). I guess performance comes into play, as well as a mathematician's view
(even though many who are not mathematicians do numerical computing) that
_that_ level of nitpickiness is just too much <g>.
But if we were to have use cases in which exactness was paramount, very high precision (or perhaps using a RationalNumber class) would of course be the right thing to provide.
And of course, you can quickly waste 50 digits of individual value representation precision with bad numerics ;-)
Phil
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
