What is the difference between a single precision floating point operation and double precision floating operation? I’m especially interested in practical terms in relation to video game consoles. For example, does the Nintendo 64 have a 64 bit processor and if it does then would that mean it was capable of double precision floating point … Read more
Why do some numbers lose accuracy when stored as floating point numbers? For example, the decimal number 9.2 can be expressed exactly as a ratio of two decimal integers (92/10), both of which can be expressed exactly in binary (0b1011100/0b1010). However, the same ratio stored as a floating point number is never exactly equal to … Read more
Why do comparisons of NaN values behave differently from all other values? That is, all comparisons with the operators ==, <=, >=, <, > where one or both values is NaN returns false, contrary to the behaviour of all other values. I suppose this simplifies numerical computations in some way, but I couldn’t find an … Read more
I’ve always been told never to represent money with double or float types, and this time I pose the question to you: why? I’m sure there is a very good reason, I simply do not know what it is. 16 s 16 Because floats and doubles cannot accurately represent the base 10 multiples that we … Read more
