Computational Methods in Engineering (ME6000)

Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras

Exercise Questions on Errors and Approximations
Instructor: Ratna Kumar Annabattula
email: ratna@iitm.ac.in
August 12, 2014
1. Convert the following decimal numbers to their binary equivalents
23.45 0.5 267.32
2. Evaluate the true and approximate percentage relative error of estimating sin(x) at x = /3 through
Taylor series around x = 0 using 2, 3 and 4 terms.
3. What are minimum and maximum numbers (both integers and oating point) that can be represented on
a 11 bit computer. For oating point representation, choose your own break-up of bits for sign, mantissa
and signed exponent. Also, discuss all the important aspects of representing real numbers on such a
digital computer.
4. Show through an example that if a function is expanded using Taylor series about a point, then the
function can be better approximated in its neighbourhood either by increasing the number of terms in the
series or by narrowing the neighbourhood of interest.
5. If cos (2x) is expanded about x = 0 using Taylor series, the resulting series expansion will be continuous
or discontinuous?
6. What is machine epsilon? Write an algorithm for calculating machine epsilon.
7. What is the range of mantissa for a normalized oating point representation scheme in a binary, decimal
and octagonal system.
8. If you have a 4 bit computer that can only represent positive integers, what will be the result of 8 + 8 on
this computer?
9. What is condition number of a function? Discuss about a function that is ill-conditioned at one point, but
well-conditioned at another point. Choose an example different from the one discussed in the class.
10. Discuss the inuence of changing the number of bits in mantissa and exponent on the numbers repre-
sented on a 11-bit computer discussed in Question. 3.
11. Show through an example that the round-off errors accumulate with increase in number of computations.
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