Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#171

Post by oh_sigh » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

jovial_cavalier wrote: post #157

shmolyneaux wrote: post #70

The floating point error problem has not been solved. This patent describes a floating-point representation that includes fields for storing error information. The standard IEEE floating-point representation has three fields: a sign field, an exponent field, and a mantissa (or significand). This patent proposes reducing the size of other fields and adding additional fields to store error information. The error inform…

> If an operation exceeds this limit, an insufficient significant bits signal "sNaN(isb)" would be raised. What about for binary repeating decimals like 0.3? Wouldn't it always raise that signal?

Presumably if you specify that you want more units of precision than are available, then yes. But if you say you only want 1 significant digit, then it can store it.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#172

Post by Retra » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

Joe-Z wrote: post #59

turc1656 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's an inventor. Inventors usually work towards patents. Also, it's not so "no one else can use it". It's so that he can license out his work to a company like Intel. The patent is to protect him from a company like Intel going "sweet, thanks for the fix." And then profiting off his work. Or do you expect this guy to work for free?

>Or do you expect this guy to work for free? Apparently he did up until now, didn't he? I agree he should get a percentage of the profits other companies make off of his invention, but it's not like he's entitled to any payments just because he liked to tinker around. Inventor's not a real profession.

Everything is done for free up until it is paid for. That doesn't mean that it is fair to not pay for any work done in advance of payment. Not sure what kind of thought process led you say this, but it is not a productive one.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#173

Post by oh_sigh » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #165

ad_hominem wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fantasy world is thinking that plucky little inventors creating something is the status quo. You think big companies like Intel don't have hundreds of people working on research full-time? That they freely lease all fruits of their research out to their competition rather than keeping a 20-year monopoly? Patents, like any monopoly-granting device, benefit market incumbents much more than encourage new entrants

maybe large companies shouldn't be able to own patents.

Okay, so now we will have a bunch of 1 person in-name-only companies which hold patents, which offer exclusive licenses to big companies for $1 per 1000 years.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#174

Post by craftyguy » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #168

craftyguy wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Actually it's possible to represent 1/3 perfectly accurately I'm curious, how?

> I'm curious, how? As 1/3 - exactly as it's on your screen. All rational numbers can be represented exactly.

Hmm, yes, it can be represented in ASCII. But you still have to approximate when storing it in a way that is actually useful for computation using a finite number of bits.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#175

Post by Retra » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #105

Spivak wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the right thing to do work for no compensation?

It is the right thing when you know that mathematics isn't patentable.

Everything is mathematics from the right perspective.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#176

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:47 PM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #174

ars wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious, how? As 1/3 - exactly as it's on your screen. All rational numbers can be represented exactly.

Hmm, yes, it can be represented in ASCII. But you still have to approximate when storing it in a way that is actually useful for computation using a finite number of bits.

    struct rational {
        int numerator;
        int denominator;
    };

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#177

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

Ma8ee wrote: post #134

mcny wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost all real numbers have this property > Almost all I love this comment because it brings back memories of school. In a layman's terms, I think almost all in this case means all but a finite amount can we say almost all real numbers are irrational? 1 1/1 2/1 3/1 4/1 5/1 ... 2 1/2 2/2 3/2 4/2 5/2 ... 3 ... so clearly we can count all the rational numbers but how many irrational numbers are there? are there (many…

The rational numbers are clearly countable. The irrational numbers are uncountable, which means that for every rational number there are infinitely many irrational numbers.

I wasn't talking about irrational numbers.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#178

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #120

School-Cotton wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's possible to represent 1/3 perfectly accurately, but what about all the numbers that it's theoretically impossible to compute? (Almost all real numbers have this property)

> Almost all real numbers have this property > Almost all I love this comment because it brings back memories of school. In a layman's terms, I think almost all in this case means all but a finite amount can we say almost all real numbers are irrational? 1 1/1 2/1 3/1 4/1 5/1 ... 2 1/2 2/2 3/2 4/2 5/2 ... 3 ... so clearly we can count all the rational numbers but how many irrational numbers are there? are there (many…

Yes, almost all real numbers are irrational, but I was talking about non-computable numbers, not irrational numbers.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#179

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #149

Ma8ee wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rational numbers are clearly countable. The irrational numbers are uncountable, which means that for every rational number there are infinitely many irrational numbers.

But for every integer there are also an infinite number of rationals. And since we can put the rationals into 1-1 correspondence with integers, that means that for every rational there are an infinite number of rationals. Infinity is funny like that. The conclusion that there are somehow more irrationals than rationals depends on subtle philosophical points that have no possible proof or disproof and usually get glos…

> The conclusion that there are somehow more irrationals than rationals depends on subtle philosophical points that have no possible proof or disproof and usually get glossed over

Can you elaborate? The proof that there are more irrationals than rationals is very straightforward, from my perspective.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#180

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #174

ars wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious, how? As 1/3 - exactly as it's on your screen. All rational numbers can be represented exactly.

Hmm, yes, it can be represented in ASCII. But you still have to approximate when storing it in a way that is actually useful for computation using a finite number of bits.

Many real programming languages support arbitrary precision decimal and/or rational numbers.

Sure, there are times when space or speed concerns favor inexact representation over correctness, but that's an optimization that ought to be properly evaluated; the fact that lots of languages are designed in a way which makes it the default everyone reaches for contributes to lots of errors.