Boost logo

Boost :

From: Guillaume Melquiond (guillaume.melquiond_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-12-08 04:55:55


Le vendredi 08 décembre 2006 à 09:25 +0000, Paul A Bristow a écrit :

> I strongly support thinking about (computational) uncertainty estimates.
>
> (Uncertainty seems to be the 'modern' term for what was called error).
>
> But I am not clear exactly how to achieve this. We've got Interval
> but it's doubtful if this is the right weapon to use.

Interval as a generic notion is the right tool for bounding errors and
representing uncertain inputs. Most papers on "reliable computing" are
related to intervals (the name may change for higher dimensions, like
ellipsoids, but they are still convex sets).

Then there is the matter of representing intervals. With lower-upper
bounds as in Boost.Interval, the representation is fine as long as the
precision of the intervals is "small". For precisions of thousands of
bits, a midpoint-radius representation is more efficient, as the radius
can be stored in reduced form to improve performance and memory
footprint.

Best regards,

Guillaume


Boost list run by bdawes at acm.org, gregod at cs.rpi.edu, cpdaniel at pacbell.net, john at johnmaddock.co.uk