Static and Dynamic Numerical Characteristics of Floating-Point Arithmetic
- 1 June 1973
- journal article
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in IEEE Transactions on Computers
- Vol. C-22 (6) , 598-601
- https://doi.org/10.1109/tc.1973.5009112
Abstract
The appearance of hexadecimal floating-point arithmetic systems has prompted a continuing discourse on the relative numerical merits of various choices of base. Until lately this discourse has centered around the static properties of the floating-point representation of numbers, and has primarily concerned only binary and hexadecimal representations. Recent events may change this discourse considerably. A third numerically attractive alternative for the choice of base has been proposed, and a comparison of the dynamic numerical properties of floating-point arithmetic systems has been completed. This paper surveys these recent events and summarizes our current knowledge of the numerical characteristics of floating-point arithmetic systems.Keywords
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