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[orcinus]

(04-08-2014 07:41 AM)HP67 Wrote:  I don't pick up from Colin's post that there is any confusion, just a general sense that accuracy and to a lesser extent precision haven't kept paces with advances in hardware.

His response to my:

Quote:So you're saying you'd prefer it'd display 3.45E-20 to 3.45E-10 and consider that a valuable application of technological progress?

... pretty clearly identifies that's his primary concern/critique, yes, but with the caveat of being solely a question of precision, not accuracy.

Which begs the question - what exactly is "precise enough" and how can there be an absolute measure of precision that's in-line with current hardware? Required and/or significant precision changes according to application. And would 3.45E-20 really be a better answer than 3.45E-10 in this particular example?