Computing Mathematics
How Computers Get It Wrong: 2 + 2 = 5. When lives depend on calculations, human error can kill. From the early days of computing, one problem has been that they generally work with a fixed number of digits, creating rounding errors. Chaos Theory has shown new ways in which computer arithmetic can give misleading results. Such problems are not just theoretical - legend has it that one programmer became rich transferring the fractions of a penny lost in rounding errors into his own account!
Professor Tony Mann has taught mathematics and computing at the University of Greenwich for over twenty years. He was President of the British Society for the History of Mathematics from 2008 to 2011 and is editor of the Newsletter of the London Mathematical Society.
(from gresham.ac.uk)
| 2. How Computers Get It Wrong: 2 + 2 = 5 |
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