MATH/CMPSC 455

Introduction to Numerical Analysis I

Floating Point Representation of Real Numbers

FLOATING POINT REPRESENTATION OF REAL NUMBERS

!! This

is about how computers represent and operate real numbers. !! Helps us to understand rounding errors
We consider IEEE 754 Floating Point Standard Representing binary numbers in computer: 1.! format 2.! machine representation

FLOATING POINT FORMAT

!! Formats

for decimal system

Standard Notation

Scientific Notation

Normalized Scientific Notation

FLOATING POINT FORMAT

!! Format

for floating point number (binary representation)

Normalized IEEE floating point standard:

o! sign (+ or -) o! mantissa , which contains the significant bits. (N bs) o! exponent (p, M-bit binary number)

Precision single double Long double

sign 1 1 1

Exponent (M) 8 11 15

Mantissa (N) 23 52 64

Definition (machine epsilon, ): It is the distance between 1 and the smallest floating point number greater than 1. Gives a bound on the relative error due to rounding.
For the IEEE double precision floating point standard:

ROUNDING
How do we fit a given binary number in a finite number of bits? IEEE Rounding to Nearest Rule:
For double precision, if the 53rd bit to the right of the binary point is 0, then round down (truncate after the 52nd bit). If the 53rd bit is 1, then round up (add 1 to 52 bit), unless all known bits to the right of the 1 are 0s, in which case 1 is added to bit 52 if and only if bit 52 is 1.

ROUNDING
Notation: Denote the IEEE double precision floating point number associated to x, using the Rounding to the Nearest Rule, by fl(x). Definition (absolute error & relative error): Let a computed version of the exact quantity . be

ROUNDING
Example:

Example:

Relative rounding error:

MACHINE REPRESENTATION

! Sign: 1 bit, 0 for positive, 1 for negative; ! Mantissa: 52 bits,

11

! Exponent: 11 bits so 0 < e < 2 -1 = 2047 and p = e - 1023 ! 1~2046 " -1022 ~ 1023 ! 2 values reserved for infinity / NaN and 0 ! 2047 " infinity if the mantissa is allzeros, NaN otherwise; ! 0 " small numbers including 0

ADDITION AND ROUNDING OF FLOATING POINT NUMBERS

Step 1: line up the two numbers Step 2: add them
Double Precision

Higher Precision

Step 3: store the result as a floating point number

Double Precision

Example :

Example :