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Re: OT: How much float precision needed for operation?

by trammell (Priest)
on Sep 02, 2005 at 20:11 UTC ( [id://488773]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to OT: How much float precision needed for operation?

#!perl -l # Looking at function F = pi ^ y # # F = pi ^ y # error = dF = y * pi ^ (y-1) * dpi # => dpi = error / ( y * x ^ (y-1) ) # # So if we want to limit the error in F to 0.1: use constant ERROR => 0.1; use constant PI => 4 * atan2(1,1); warn "Check: pi is ", PI, "\n"; my @y = (1..9, map(10 * $_, 1..9), map(100*$_,1..10)); foreach my $y (@y) { printf "y=%d dpi=%g\n", $y, dpi($y); } sub dpi { my $y = $_[0]; my $denom = $y * PI ** ($y-1); return ERROR / $denom; } __END__ Check: pi is 3.14159265358979 y=1 dpi=0.1 y=2 dpi=0.0159155 y=3 dpi=0.00337737 y=4 dpi=0.000806288 y=5 dpi=0.00020532 y=6 dpi=5.44627e-05 y=7 dpi=1.48594e-05 y=8 dpi=4.13867e-06 y=9 dpi=1.171e-06 y=10 dpi=3.35468e-07 y=20 dpi=1.79111e-12 y=30 dpi=1.27507e-17 y=40 dpi=1.02116e-22 y=50 dpi=8.72341e-28 y=60 dpi=7.76258e-33 y=70 dpi=7.10495e-38 y=80 dpi=6.6385e-43 y=90 dpi=6.30114e-48 y=100 dpi=6.05568e-53 y=200 dpi=5.8364e-103 y=300 dpi=7.5001e-153 y=400 dpi=1.08428e-202 y=500 dpi=1.67203e-252 y=600 dpi=2.68581e-302 y=700 dpi=0 y=800 dpi=0 y=900 dpi=0 y=1000 dpi=0

Update: yes, for example if we're calculating pi^y for @y=5..15, and we introduce an error to pi of 1e-7:

#!perl -l use strict; use warnings; use constant PI => 4 * atan2(1,1); use constant DPI => 1e-7; my @y = (5..15); foreach my $y (@y) { my $f1 = F(PI,$y); my $f2 = F(PI+DPI,$y); my $delta = $f2 - $f1; printf "y=%-2d delta=%g\n", $y, $delta; } # F = pi ^ y sub F { my ($pi, $y) = @_; return $pi ** $y, } __END__ y=5 delta=4.87045e-05 y=6 delta=0.000183612 y=7 delta=0.000672972 y=8 delta=0.00241623 y=9 delta=0.00853968 y=10 delta=0.0298091 y=11 delta=0.103013 y=12 delta=0.353045 y=13 delta=1.20155 y=14 delta=4.06515 y=15 delta=13.6833
So an error of 1e-7 in pi doesn't affect the output of F by more than 0.1 until we hit y=11.

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Re^2: OT: How much float precision needed for operation?
by 5mi11er (Deacon) on Sep 02, 2005 at 21:02 UTC
    So, I think what your data says is:
    To ensure an error of no more than plus/minus 0.1 we'd need ~7 digits to the right of the decimal point for y=10 and ~53 digits for y=100
    Is this correct?

    -Scott

    Update: trammel, thank you very much for your excellent examples above.

    So, for others who want to extend this to other functions:

    If we take the derivative of the function we're working with, multiplied by a delta (difference), and know what our tolerance for error is, we can solve for the maximum delta that will be within our tolerance for error.

    In math symbols, the process is:

    • given function F
    • find the derative -> dF
    • maxdelta = errortolerance/dF

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