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Lecture

Binary Representation of Real Numbers

In course

CS-119(a): Information, Computation, Communication

D'une part, le cours aborde: (1) la notion d'algorithme et de représentation de l'information, (2) l'échantillonnage d'un signal et la compression de données et (3) des aspects liés aux systèmes: ordinateur, mémoire, etc. D'autre part, le cours donne une i ...

Description

This lecture covers the binary representation of real numbers, highlighting the limitations of representing all real numbers exactly with a finite number of bits. Concepts such as absolute and relative errors in binary representation are discussed using examples like 0.375 and π. The lecture also explores fixed-point and floating-point representations, emphasizing the precision and errors associated with each method.

In MOOC

Information, Computation, Communication: Introduction to computational thinking

Instructors (3)

Dan-Cristian Tomozei

Mirjana Stojilovic

Mirjana Stojilović received the Dipl. Ing. and Ph.D. degrees from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, in 2006 and 2013, respectively. From 2010 to 2013, she was collaborating with the Processor Architecture Laboratory at EPFL, visiting periodically as a Guest Researcher. From 2013 to 2016, she was working at the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland as a senior researcher, and at EPFL as a lecturer. She joined Parallel Systems Architecture Lab at EPFL in October 2016. Mirjana's main research interests include electronic design automation, reconfigurable computing, electromagnetic-compatibility and signal-integrity issues, and hardware security. Mirjana Stojilović serves on the program committee of the FPGA, FPL, and FCCM conferences and as a reviewer for IEEE TCAD, TVLSI, TC, TEMC, IEEE Access and ACM TRETS. She received the Best Paper Award at 2016 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC Europe 2016), Young Scientist Award at 33rd International Conference on Lightning Protection (ICLP2016), and the Young Author Best Paper Award at the 20th Telecommunication Forum in Belgrade (TELFOR 2012). In 2015, the EPFL School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC) presented her with the Teaching Award.

Olivier Lévêque

Olivier Lévêque was born in Switzerland in 1971. He received the physics diploma from EPFL in 1995 and completed his PhD in mathematics at EPFL in 2001. Since then, he has been with the Laboratory of Information Theory at EPFL. He spent the academical year 2005-2006 at the Electrical Engineering Department of Stanford University, where he was appointed as lecturer. His research interests include stochastic analysis, random matrices, wireless communications and information theory.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mathematics

Analysis: Numerical analysis

Related concepts (32)

Real number

In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a continuous one-dimensional quantity such as a distance, duration or temperature. Here, continuous means that pairs of values can have arbitrarily small differences. Every real number can be almost uniquely represented by an infinite decimal expansion. The real numbers are fundamental in calculus (and more generally in all mathematics), in particular by their role in the classical definitions of limits, continuity and derivatives.

Quadruple-precision floating-point format

In computing, quadruple precision (or quad precision) is a binary floating point–based computer number format that occupies 16 bytes (128 bits) with precision at least twice the 53-bit double precision. This 128-bit quadruple precision is designed not only for applications requiring results in higher than double precision, but also, as a primary function, to allow the computation of double precision results more reliably and accurately by minimising overflow and round-off errors in intermediate calculations and scratch variables.

Decimal floating point

Decimal floating-point (DFP) arithmetic refers to both a representation and operations on decimal floating-point numbers. Working directly with decimal (base-10) fractions can avoid the rounding errors that otherwise typically occur when converting between decimal fractions (common in human-entered data, such as measurements or financial information) and binary (base-2) fractions. The advantage of decimal floating-point representation over decimal fixed-point and integer representation is that it supports a much wider range of values.

Double-precision floating-point format

Double-precision floating-point format (sometimes called FP64 or float64) is a floating-point number format, usually occupying 64 bits in computer memory; it represents a wide dynamic range of numeric values by using a floating radix point. Floating point is used to represent fractional values, or when a wider range is needed than is provided by fixed point (of the same bit width), even if at the cost of precision. Double precision may be chosen when the range or precision of single precision would be insufficient.

Half-precision floating-point format

In computing, half precision (sometimes called FP16 or float16) is a binary floating-point computer number format that occupies 16 bits (two bytes in modern computers) in computer memory. It is intended for storage of floating-point values in applications where higher precision is not essential, in particular and neural networks. Almost all modern uses follow the IEEE 754-2008 standard, where the 16-bit base-2 format is referred to as binary16, and the exponent uses 5 bits.

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