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Title

Engineer's Toolbox: Floating Point in Mathematica
Author

D. Jacobson
Journal / Anthology

The Mathematica Journal
Year: 1992
Volume: 2
Issue: 3
Page range: 42-46
Description

Mathematica provides both traditional machine-level floating point numbers and software implemented variable-precision floating-point numbers. There are two different notions of precision: an estimate of the maximum possible relative error, which is propagated through arithmetic operations based on the precision of the operands; and the number of digits used to represent the significant (mantissa). Mathematica links the first notion to the second, throwing away digits that it cannot prove are significant. In iterative calculations the precision can ratchet down a little each iteration, until there is nothing left.
Subject

*Wolfram Technology > Kernel > Numerics
URL

http://www.mathematica-journal.com/issue/v2i3/