Is a Computer a Perfect Computing Machine?






Jean-François COLONNA
[Contact me]

www.lactamme.polytechnique.fr

CMAP (Centre de Mathématiques APpliquées) UMR CNRS 7641, École polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, CNRS, France

[Site Map, Help and Search [Plan du Site, Aide et Recherche]]
[The Y2K Bug [Le bug de l'an 2000]]
[Please, visit A Virtual Machine for Exploring Space-Time and Beyond, the place where you can find thousands of pictures and animations between Art and Science]
(CMAP28 WWW site: this page was created on 02/13/2010 and last updated on 12/12/2023 18:40:15 -CET-)



[en français/in french]


Abstract: A computer is a programmable computing machine that is both finite and non continuous. Then most numbers and in particular the real numbers cannot be memorized and manipulated exactly. In most computations rounding-off errors will appear mostly in problems sensitive to initial conditions and these errors will propagate and amplify. The usual mathematical properties like associativity are lost and then two different computers regarding hardware and/or software running the same program could give different results.


Keywords: Nombres réels, Nombres Flottants, Erreurs d'arrondi, Associativité, Ordinateur, Real Numbers, Floating point numbers, Rounding-off errors, Associativity, Computer..






Copyright © Jean-François COLONNA, 2010-2023.
Copyright © CMAP (Centre de Mathématiques APpliquées) UMR CNRS 7641 / École polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 2010-2023.