🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4781@freja.diku.dk> njk@freja.diku.dk (Niels J|rgen Kruse) writes:

| Consider that it is meaningless from a numerical viewpoint to
| represent one component of a complex number with greater
| accuracy than the other.
| 
| This means that a dedicated storage format need only have *one*
| exponent. Comparing such a double precision format to a conventional

  Whoa! I'm missing something here, what has exponent got to do with
accuracy? The exponent specifies the magnitude and the mantissa provides
the accuracy. If you have one exponent and the real component is large
while the imaginary component is small you will have fewer significant
digits (that's what I mean by accuracy) in one than the other.

  Could you 'splain this to me? It sounds as if you are saying that if
one component is large in magnitude we can afford to have less precision
on the other. Hope I misunderstand what you're telling me.
	bill davidsen		(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM)
  {uunet | philabs}!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me