Groups > comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica > #1256

Re: Why Mathematica does not issue a warning when the calculations

From	Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups	comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica
Subject	Re: Why Mathematica does not issue a warning when the calculations
Date	2011-03-30 09:11 +0000
Organization	Steven M. Christensen and Associates, Inc and MathTensor, Inc.
Message-ID	<imus36$hvs$1@smc.vnet.net> (permalink)
References	<imsh6s$5k4$1@smc.vnet.net>

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On 3/29/2011 4:53 AM, Andrzej Kozlowski wrote:
> In addition (for some curious reason) Richard never bothers to point out that
>
> z = 1.0000000000000000000;
> Block[{$MaxPrecision = 20, $MinPrecision = 20},
>   Table[(z = 2*z - z), {42}]]
>
> will give the output that other systems give (with all the accompanying problems your post below mentions).
>
> In other words, his (and only his) gripe is only with Mathematica's *default* arithmetic.

I have other gripes, too :)

It would be nicer if one could simple do this

$DefaultArithmetic = Precision[20]  and try some computation, vs.
$DefaultArithmetic = Significance

RJF

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Re: Why Mathematica does not issue a warning when the calculations Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> - 2011-03-30 09:11 +0000

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