July 8, 2009
9:50 p.m.
David Goehrig wrote:
IEEE754 run contrary to all of my 18 years of sudying math and using rational numbers.
I find that a bit difficult to accept because numerical analysis courses in colleges and universities describe floating point arithmetic as a basis for the material. Really: without knowing how floating point arithmetic works, then it's going to be considerably harder to do applied math work. Also, I don't see how anybody could mount an argument against floating point arithmetic on math grounds when e.g.: Knuth devotes a significant number of pages of The Art of Computer Programming to them. Not to say that Knuth has to be right, but... Andres.