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Getting around the rounding error in binary division

Apr 8, 2012 at 8:09pm
How do x86 processors usually go about dividing numbers while getting around the rounding error of binary division? That's probably a broad question with a lot of answers, but if you know any techniques they use to divide numbers, I'd like to know.
Apr 8, 2012 at 9:42pm
They don't -- the rounding error propagates.
Apr 9, 2012 at 11:39pm
But how do computers deal with it? Why don't we just have numbers really close to the actual answer when you do division on a computer in whatever program? Rounding? But then if the answer was actually supposed to be that number non-rounded, it would be wrong... Clearly I'm pretty ignorant on the subject. Haha.
Apr 10, 2012 at 12:08am
Computers don't deal with it -- they are too stupid.

A smart programmer will organize his mathematical expressions in a way to avoid as much error as he needs.

It might be worth your time to read through this:
http://perso.ens-lyon.fr/jean-michel.muller/goldberg.pdf
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