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| Raising a number to a non-integer power. |
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| SiliconWizard:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on May 28, 2020, 03:25:48 am ---Actually, the form ab = 2b log2 a is useful, as it is something a computer can do in binary directly, and quite efficiently for base-2 floating point numbers. Details. --- End quote --- Yep! Generally speaking, even for integer exponentiation, a binary algorithm is much more efficient than a simple linear algorithm (multiplying the number by itself b times.) |
| Nominal Animal:
For those interested, the binary integer algorithm calculates ab for integer b>0 with at most 2 log2 b multiplications. In pseudocode, --- Code: ---Function ipow(a, b): Let result = 1 While b > 0: If b is odd: result = result × a b = (b - 1) / 2 Else b = b / 2 End If a = a × a End While Return result End Function --- End code --- For negative b, you do 1/ipow(a,-b) or ipow(1/a, -b). b=0 is mathematically ambiguous case, and usually handled separately. Programming languages with integer division (dropping the fractional part, or rounding toward zero, or binary shift right by one bit), just do b = b / 2 in both branches of the If clause. The one extra squaring of a is avoided in practice by moving the end-of-loop test to just after halving b. |
| RoGeorge:
Op asks what is the intuitive representation of raising a number to a fractional power, gets answers about best numerical algorithms. ::) Software devs are the best example for the saying "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail". Not sure if this is their biggest flaw or their biggest power. And, if that's a power indeed, is it a non-integer one? ;D |
| magic:
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on May 29, 2020, 05:37:32 am ---Software devs are the best example for the saying "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail". Not sure if this is their biggest flaw or their biggest power. --- End quote --- Look at the software available today, compare with the software available 15 years ago, take a wild guess ::) |
| aneevuser:
--- Quote from: magic on May 28, 2020, 12:57:38 pm --- Fair enough, off the top of my head I can't provide a simple algebraic argument why complex exponents should be defined the way they are. That doesn't necessarily mean no such argument exists. I don't know what reasoning originally led to the Euler identity and things like that - perhaps the Taylor series, maybe something more direct and straightforward. --- End quote --- You might want to take a look at the first chapter (and others) of "Visual Complex Analysis" by Needham, which gives a couple of suggestive geometric/algebraic arguments for the validity of Euler's formula. |
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