Is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_arithmetic ?
I.e. you carry the lower and upper bound all the way?
Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
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Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
#12Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
#13>The inventor patented a process that addresses floating point errors by computing “two limits (or bounds) that contain the represented real number. These bounds are carried through successive calculations. When the calculated result is no longer sufficiently accurate the result is so marked, as are all further calculations made using that value.”
That does seem useful but it's a bit akin to saying that you've solved the division-by-zero problem by inventing NaN. Suppose you're writing some critical piece of software and a floating point operation raises the "inaccurate" flag, how do you deal with that? Do you at least have access to the bounds computed by the hardware, so that you may decide to pick a more conservative value if that makes sense?
Besides the link to the "1991 Patriot missile failure" kinds of contradicts the claim that this would solve the issue since Wikipedia says:
>However, the timestamps of the two radar pulses being compared were converted to floating point differently: one correctly, the other introducing an error proportionate to the operation time so far (100 hours) caused by the truncation in a 24-bit fixed-point register.
If the problem comes from truncation in a FP register I'm not sure how this invention would've helped.
Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
#14And immediately patents it... so no one else can use it. EDIT: and for some other methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unum_%28number_format%29 , particularly the latest one being the Posit method: http://superfri.org/superfri/article/download/137/232 EDIT2: of course other people can license it, but the other way to bring a new floating point to the scene would be through the same process that happened with IEEE 7…
I understand the downside, but how else would he ever get paid for this?
Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
#15This looks so obvious. How could this be patented ? The real question is why no one already implemented it ? It wouldn't surprise me if it already exist.
Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
#16Patent in case anyone is curious
Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
#17Even worse, a patent for a "processor design, which allows representation of real numbers accurate to the last digit" is obviously nonsense. Pi (=3.141...) is a real number where there is no "last digit".
Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
#18And immediately patents it... so no one else can use it. EDIT: and for some other methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unum_%28number_format%29 , particularly the latest one being the Posit method: http://superfri.org/superfri/article/download/137/232 EDIT2: of course other people can license it, but the other way to bring a new floating point to the scene would be through the same process that happened with IEEE 7…
Patents don't necessarily mean nobody else can use it. For example, he could license the technology which means people have to pay to use it.
He's even able to make more creative licensing terms: royalty free license or "royalty free if you use the BFPF trade organization logo."
Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
#19It doesn't actually sound like he "solved" it. More like he put error bounds around it and can detect when the error is more than X.
> When the calculated result is no longer sufficiently accurate the result is so marked, as are all further calculations made using that value.
Solving it would be a pretty big deal. This doesn't feel like it is, though I admit I haven't worked on a similar problem in a long time. Kinda feels like patent trolling as I imagine that lots of companies have put bounds on detecting floating point errors when they need it. There are certainly lots of papers on it: https://www.google.com/search?q=floating+point+error+bounds
Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem
#20Considering the over-the-top language ("a game changer for the computing industry") and questionable or imprecise comments like, "[it] allows representation of real numbers accurate to the last digit" (um, who reads that without thinking of irrational numbers?) it sounds too much like a sales pitch and not like serious research.
I could be wrong, but based on the similarities to interval arithmetic everyone has already identified, I'm pretty skeptical. At best, this could be a patent on a more efficient way to build interval arithmetic into a CPU architecture rather than a completely new technique.
As my British friends would say though, I can't be arsed to actually read the patent.