RE: draft

["Markstein, Peter" <peter.markstein@xxxxxx>]

David Hough wrote:
>
> > 4.1.1: Replace "numbers bracketing the infinitely precise
> result" with
> > "numbers bracketing an unrepresentable infinitely precise
> result".  Why
> > is it OK to delete "nearest"?
>
> "bracketing" implies "nearest" I think.    This change might
> have been made while
> I was gone though.
>

For unrepresentatble quantities just larger in magnitude than a power of the base, the base and the next smaller-in-magnitude numbers are closest, since the value of an ulp changes as we cross a power boundary.  E.g. in decimal 4 digit arithmetic, the two closest quantities to 1.0001 are 1.000 and 0.9999, but not 1.001.