Further Examples: $MinPrecision

The default value of $MinPrecision is .

In[1]:= $MinPrecision

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Numbers with negative precision are meaningful. They indicate that the numbers are swamped by error.

In[2]:= Precision[1.234`-99]

Out[2]=

This defines the function FixedPrecisionEvaluate which locally resets the values of $MinPrecision and $MaxPrecision before evaluating its input.

In[3]:=

In[4]:=

The precision of the result is the same as the precision of the input.

In[5]:=

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In contrast, significance arithmetic dynamically adjusts precision according to the precision of the inputs. The precision of the result is one binary bit less precise.

In[6]:=

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