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Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

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Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#61

Post by iiv »

nraynaud wrote: post #39
agar wrote: post #20

Considering 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 alrea…

it's a journalist writing the article, they want clickbait.

The journalist quoted the "inventor".

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#62

Post by cavanasm »

gibrown wrote: post #19

It 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…

IANAL, but if other companies have already done it and it's that easy to find, then it wouldn't be a good patent troll, because there's obvious and easily discoverable prior art (which would invalidate the patent anyway).

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#63

Post by wizzard »

Tenobrus wrote: post #29
api wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the downside, but how else would he ever get paid for this?

Under a different system that doesn't incentivize holding back global progress for small amounts of individual enrichment. There's a reason Linux and GNU utilities are so massively widely used, and overall they've probably provided billions in economic value. They do that freely, for any human to use, and in fact that's part of their main value proposition. Both were born out of the legal nightmare that was UNIX at t…

So he should have either hoped that corporations would feel charitable, or submitted himself as a guinea pig to a system that doesn't exist. Got it.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#64

Post by dekhn »

wolfgke wrote: post #53
dekhn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an absolutist position that permits no subtlety. But the patent system is a subtle incentivization which seeks to balance a number of forces (in particular, it incentivizes people to invent new things that they can profit from, while also avoiding trade secrets).

> This is an absolutist position that permits no subtlety. Where is the problem with such positions?

Simple: you are unlikely to affect any change by taking an absolutist position. Beyond making it look like you're inflexible, patents have extensive pre-existing legal support, so it's really unlikely anybody is going to change their mind just because you feel strongly.

It's better, when you're arguing on the internet, to limit yourself to reasonable arguments that people are receptive to, and working to convince people.

I used to feel very strongly about patents (that they were "wrong") but, over time I've come to believe they are the least unreasonable protection for IP that also encourages long-term sharing. Trade secrets are worse because society as a whole doesn't get to benefit.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#65

Post by Chaebixi »

Tenobrus wrote: post #29
api wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the downside, but how else would he ever get paid for this?

Under a different system that doesn't incentivize holding back global progress for small amounts of individual enrichment. There's a reason Linux and GNU utilities are so massively widely used, and overall they've probably provided billions in economic value. They do that freely, for any human to use, and in fact that's part of their main value proposition. Both were born out of the legal nightmare that was UNIX at t…

> Under a different system that doesn't incentivize holding back global progress for small amounts of individual enrichment.

Patents were explicitly created to avoid, "incentivize holding back global progress for small amounts of individual enrichment." The other realistic alternative is keeping the invention a trade secret, which is much worse for progress.

> How should he get paid for this? In a very-ideal world, people and corporations that used his idea and had spare capital would voluntarily give him donations.

That sounds exactly like how patents work except with no protections for the inventor. With a patents, the corporations that use the idea do give the inventor donations called license fees, but they can't screw him over and pay him less than he's worth (which they would otherwise do so they can keep the profits for themselves).

Basically, it sounds like you're proposing worse, more awkward systems because you irrationally hate the concept of patents for some reason.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#66

Post by wolfgke »

dekhn wrote: post #57
wolfgke wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what about programmers that care about free as freedom?

What about them? You're free to discover new things, and not patent them, instead publishing them. If you have a problem with patents, take it up with the legislature and the judicial system, but there's no reason to attack inventors for using a common legal system for protecting their intellectual property.

> If you have a problem with patents, take it up with the legislature and the judicial system, but there's no reason to attack inventors for using a common legal system for protecting their intellectual property.

Many people attack companies that use tax loopholes even though the government does "allow" these loopholes. So if one is opposed to something, but it is formally allowed, one should attack both sides: The people doing it and the government.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#67

Post by tombert »

agar wrote: post #20

Considering 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 alrea…

That's what I was thinking too; If I do 1 / 3, then of course it will have to truncate, and integration errors would still be inevitable.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#68

Post by JackFr »

kbenson wrote: post #42
Tenobrus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under a different system that doesn't incentivize holding back global progress for small amounts of individual enrichment. There's a reason Linux and GNU utilities are so massively widely used, and overall they've probably provided billions in economic value. They do that freely, for any human to use, and in fact that's part of their main value proposition. Both were born out of the legal nightmare that was UNIX at t…

> Under a different system that doesn't incentivize holding back global progress for small amounts of individual enrichment. Patents don't hold back global progress any more than capitalism keeps people in poverty. If we went back a few hundred years and impose alternatives, would we be better off today? I doubt it. The whole point of the patent system is to foster innovation, and free exchange of ideas. Without the…

> The whole point of the patent system is to foster innovation

And if it seems like the patent system is being gamed to hinder innovation (not really in this case, but yes absolutely in the case of pharma) it should be revisited. Intellectual property laws are based in pragmatism, not natural law. If the costs begin to outweigh the benefits, they should be changed.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#69

Post by whyever »

bringtheaction wrote: post #38
whyever wrote: post #26

> “In the current art, static error analysis requires significant mathematical analysis and cannot determine actual error in real time,” reads a section of the patent. “This work must be done by highly skilled mathematician programmers. Therefore, error analysis is only used for critical projects because of the greatly increased cost and time required. In contrast, the present invention provides error computation in…

Does anyone know a similar library for Rust?

Arb depends on lots of other numerical libraries (namely FLINT, MPFR and GMP or MPIR). If you want pure-Rust alternatives, the ecosystem is just not there yet.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#70

Post by shmolyneaux »

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 information would be updated by hardware during regular operations. The patent proposed adding a configurable amount of precision to the numbers. If an operation exceeds this limit, an insufficient significant bits signal "sNaN(isb)" would be raised.

Not only does this method not reduce floating point error, it reduces the precision that you have for any given number of bits.

Unfortunately I can't find any of the figures referenced in the patent to help me understand the novelty of this patent.

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