Tamas, You might want to read Joachim's post more carefully - he's trying to help you, and I think he makes a good point. -Chad
Am Freitag, den 29.09.2006, 19:30 -0400 schrieb Tamas K Papp:
the smallest positive floating point number x such that 1+x /= x? That would be the smallest positive number, woudn't it?
Do you mean the smalles postive number x with 1+x /= 1?
Hi Joachim,
Specifically, I would be happy with the smallest Double that makes the statement true. I need it as a convergence bound for an iterative algorithm. Anyhow, thanks for the clarification, but I would be happier with an answer.
Tamas
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-- Chad Scherrer "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" -- Groucho Marx
On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 06:53:35PM -0700, Chad Scherrer wrote:
Tamas,
You might want to read Joachim's post more carefully - he's trying to help you, and I think he makes a good point.
Chad, If his point is that there is no smallest positive number, then I think I understand it, thanks. I should have said that I was looking for the smallest positive number Double can represent, but thought that was clear from the context. If this is not his point, I'd really appreciate an explanation. Thanks, Tamas
Hang on, hang on, now I'm getting confused. First you asked for the smallest (positive) x such that 1+x /= x which is around x=4.5e15. Then Joachim wondered if you wanted 1+x /= 1 which is around x=2.2e-16. But not you claim to be looking for the smallest positive number that a Double can represent. Which is a totally different beast. The smallest possible Double depends on if you want to accept denormalized numbers or not. If you don't, then it's about x=4.5e-308. Now what is the number you are looking for? -- Lennart On Sep 29, 2006, at 22:02 , Tamas K Papp wrote:
On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 06:53:35PM -0700, Chad Scherrer wrote:
Tamas,
You might want to read Joachim's post more carefully - he's trying to help you, and I think he makes a good point.
Chad,
If his point is that there is no smallest positive number, then I think I understand it, thanks. I should have said that I was looking for the smallest positive number Double can represent, but thought that was clear from the context.
If this is not his point, I'd really appreciate an explanation.
Thanks,
Tamas _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
On Sat, Sep 30, 2006 at 04:19:50AM -0400, Lennart Augustsson wrote:
Hang on, hang on, now I'm getting confused.
First you asked for the smallest (positive) x such that 1+x /= x which is around x=4.5e15. Then Joachim wondered if you wanted 1+x /= 1 which is around x=2.2e-16.
Oops, sorry, there was a typo in my original post. I was looking for the latter. Thanks for the help, Tamas
Lennart Augustsson wrote:
Hang on, hang on, now I'm getting confused.
First you asked for the smallest (positive) x such that 1+x /= x which is around x=4.5e15.
1 + 0 /= 0 0 is smaller than 4.5e15 So I don't understand this at all... Regards, Brian. -- Logic empowers us and Love gives us purpose. Yet still phantoms restless for eras long past, congealed in the present in unthought forms, strive mightily unseen to destroy us. http://www.metamilk.com
On 30 Sep 2006, at 17:19, Brian Hulley wrote:
Lennart Augustsson wrote:
Hang on, hang on, now I'm getting confused. First you asked for the smallest (positive) x such that 1+x /= x which is around x=4.5e15.
1 + 0 /= 0
0 is smaller than 4.5e15
So I don't understand this at all...
But then 0 isn't positive. Bob
Thomas Davie wrote:
On 30 Sep 2006, at 17:19, Brian Hulley wrote:
Lennart Augustsson wrote:
Hang on, hang on, now I'm getting confused. First you asked for the smallest (positive) x such that 1+x /= x which is around x=4.5e15.
1 + 0 /= 0
0 is smaller than 4.5e15
So I don't understand this at all...
But then 0 isn't positive.
Why not? In any case every positive number nust satisfy the above inequation so what about 0.1, which is certainly smaller than 4500000000000000? Regards, Brian. -- Logic empowers us and Love gives us purpose. Yet still phantoms restless for eras long past, congealed in the present in unthought forms, strive mightily unseen to destroy us. http://www.metamilk.com
Hang on, hang on, now I'm getting confused. First you asked for the smallest (positive) x such that 1+x /= x which is around x=4.5e15.
1 + 0 /= 0
0 is smaller than 4.5e15
So I don't understand this at all...
But then 0 isn't positive.
Why not? In any case every positive number nust satisfy the above inequation so what about 0.1, which is certainly smaller than 4500000000000000?
In math, every positive number must satisfy the above inequation, that is true. But as Chad said, the smallest number in Haskell (at least according to my GHC, it could be different with different processors, right?) that satisfies the equation is 2.2e-16.
1 + 2.2e-16 /= 1 True 1 + 2.2e-17 /= 1 False
This is because the Double type only holds so much precision. After getting small enough, the type just can't hold any more precision, and the value is essentially 0.
last $ takeWhile (\x -> 1 + x /= 1) (iterate (/2) 1) 2.220446049250313e-16
Hang on, hang on, now I'm getting confused. First you asked for the smallest (positive) x such that 1+x /= x which is around x=4.5e15.
1 + 0 /= 0
0 is smaller than 4.5e15
So I don't understand this at all...
But then 0 isn't positive.
Why not? In any case every positive number nust satisfy the above inequation so what about 0.1, which is certainly smaller than 4500000000000000? People are confusing equality and inequality -
Bryan Burgers wrote: the nontrivial thing here is to find the smallest positive x that satisfies the equation 1 + x == x.
In math, every positive number must satisfy the above inequation, that is true. But as Chad said, the smallest number in Haskell (at least according to my GHC, it could be different with different processors, right?) that satisfies the equation is 2.2e-16. And you've changed the subject - the stuff above was talking about x + 1 /= x, you're demonstrating solutions to a different problem, finding the smallest x such that 1 + x == 1. That's the number often called epsilon.
1 + 2.2e-16 /= 1 True 1 + 2.2e-17 /= 1 False Let's stop confusing ourselves about this.
Brandon
last $ takeWhile (\x -> 1 + x /= 1) (iterate (/2) 1) 2.220446049250313e-16
This works because of the way IEEE floating-point numbers are represented, so it's good for the majority of machines, but it is technically a hack, in that it depends on a representation of floating-point numbers in some form akin to the IEEE (1.mantissa bits)*2^(exponent). It would be nice for those of us interested in doing numerical work in Haskell if we could have machine epsilon available from the language, in case we're running on a machine where that assumption doesn't hold. I don't know where this would belong -- the Numeric library seems mainly concerned with reading and showing numbers, and System is more about interacting with the OS than making statements about the properties of the underlying hardware. --Grady Lemoine
participants (8)
-
Brandon Moore -
Brian Hulley -
Bryan Burgers -
Chad Scherrer -
Grady Lemoine -
Lennart Augustsson -
Tamas K Papp -
Thomas Davie