🚀 go-pugleaf

In article 1729@ryn.mro4.dec.com, randolph@est.enet.dec.com (Tom Randolph) writes:
>
>In article <3190@tymix.Tymnet.COM>, kopfj@bert.Tymnet.COM (John Kopf, X6305) writes...
>>I suspect that a FAQ describing common algorithms in ALGEBRA (rather than in a
>>particular computer language) would be welcome by many...I really hate the common
>>practice of displaying programs in BASIC, as it is most difficult to transcribe to
>>some other language.
>> 
>>A discussion of "precision" would also be useful for those of us who are not
>>numerical analysts.
>> 
>>JK
>
>This would quickly expand to occupy megabytes, which I imagine is why no one
>ever posts it here. There's really no way to give it proper treatment without a
>whole book's worth of formulae... hence the book references. "Astronomical
>Algorithms" by Meeus is excellent.

Unfortunately his discussion of numerical precision is very outdated.  Almost
anything you are likely to have on your desk these days will maintain much
better precision than Meeus would lead you to believe (most machines will
only lose one bit of precision in subtraction no matter how close the numbers
being subtracted for example).

	Chris Flatters
	cflatter@nrao.edu