I wrote:

 > Especially for large runlengths (and after the first few hundred iterations
 > or so), rounding errors tend to be randomly distributed in an approximately
 > Gaussian fashion,

Brian Beesley wrote:

> I know perfectly well what you mean, but these two statements tend to 
> contradict each other. Gaussian distributions are continuous & 
> smooth, we have instead a discrete distribution whose gaps tend to 
> increase with size.

I added some code to the Mlucas 2.7a source (my personal copy, not the version
on my website) to better-quantify this. Since fractional errors are defined
in the interval [0, 0.5], I subdivided this interval into 64 equal-sized bins
and counted how many fractional parts fell into each bin on each iteration.

Then I ran around a hundred iterations of M1325011 using an FFT length of 64K,
i.e. an exponent close to the practical roundoff limit for that FFT length on
an IEEE64-compliant machine. Up to iteration 13, all fractional errors fell
into bin 0, i.e. were in [0, 1/128). After that, things looked as follows -
In the table below, the vertical placement corresponds to bins 0 through 64
(bin 64 corresponds to the special case of an error = 0.5), and the table
entries denote the number of fractional errors in the corresponding bin:

                              iteration
bin   14      15      16      17      18      19      20      21      ...  44
---   -----   -----   -----   -----   -----   -----   -----   -----   ...  -----
0     65530   65457   64930   61600   44951   23245   9680    7781         7555
1     6       76      555     3332    15541   19547   10589   7371         7158
2     0       3       44      475     3573    11771   12090   10433        10356
3     0       0       7       96      972     5620    7639    5971         5961
4     0       0       0       30      348     3089    8518    9169         9353
5     0       0       0       3       84      1065    4321    4033         4042
6     0       0       0       0       55      740     4751    5804         5841
7     0       0       0       0       5       164     1923    2462         2489
8     0       0       0       0       6       199     2708    4603         4730
9     0       0       0       0       0       32      743     1262         1290
10    0       0       0       0       1       48      1149    2203         2185
11    0       0       0       0       0       2       266     594          616
12    0       0       0       0       0       10      672     1803         1890
13    0       0       0       0       0       0       62      277          259
14    0       0       0       0       0       3       206     591          606
15    0       0       0       0       0       0       21      110          118
16    0       0       0       0       0       1       137     614          636
17    0       0       0       0       0       0       3       43           49
18    0       0       0       0       0       0       23      146          121
19    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       19           22
20    0       0       0       0       0       0       29      164          162
21    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       5            6
22    0       0       0       0       0       0       2       14           20
23    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       1            2
24    0       0       0       0       0       0       4       49           51
25    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       2            0
26    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       4            3
27    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       1            0
28    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       6            11
29    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
30    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
31    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
32    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       1            4
33    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
34    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
35    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
36    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
37    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
38    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
39    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
40    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
41    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
42    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
43    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
44    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
45    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
46    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
47    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
48    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
49    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
50    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
51    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
52    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
53    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
54    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
55    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
56    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
57    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
58    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
59    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
60    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
61    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
62    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
63    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0
64    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0            0

I snipped iterations 22-43 because they are very similar to 21 and 44.

There are several interesting trends visible here. Although the overall trend
is approximately Gaussian, there is clearly a strong preference for even-
numbered bins, and an even stronger preference for power-of-2-numbered bins.

Definitely worthy of further study, but I've got to get some dinner now.

Cheers,
-Ernst


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