Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Floating Point Numbers - Computerphile

Name: Floating Point Numbers - Computerphile
Description: Tom Scott explains for Computerphile how floating point numbers work, why moving the binary point is fast, and why it handles money badly.

Computerphile

21 videos recommended on HN

YouTube

2 HN users recommended this explainer2 months2015–2023 score 2

Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Recommended as a simple, fun explanation of why floating point gives odd errors like 0.1 + 0.2.

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile how floating point numbers work, why moving the binary point is fast, and why it handles money badly.

“Tom Scott's fun and simple take on Floating Points is a good video explaining why such weird errors happen” (HN, 2015)

2 recommendations · 1 citations · Explainers · intro

Computer architecture & CPUs Information theory & signal processing Explainers Hardware & Electronics

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@felipesabino Nov 2015 Recommends

on HN thread 0.30000000000000004

Recommended: Floating Point Numbers - Computerphile [this video] Tom Scott's fun and simple take on Floating Points is a good video explaining why such weird errors happen

Fun, simple explanation of why floating point produces weird errors.

View on Hacker News

@microwavecamera Jun 2017 Recommends

on HN thread Why do programming languages suck at math?

Short answer, no decimal in binary and math is hard. :) Here's a couple handy videos explaining it: [this video] [link]

Handy explanation of why decimals do not work cleanly in binary.

View on Hacker News

Citations, criticism and jokes

@mercxry Oct 2023 Cites it

on HN thread Why you should probably be using SQLite

You should still not use MONEY in Postgres, even their own website says so [1]. I still wouldn't use floats/numerics/decimals to store currency either in any db generally, as said by others you're going to end up with inaccurate numbers [2]. Therefore using integers is in fact very good for this use-case, especially if you are in accounting or book-keeping! Source: I work for a Fintech company that processes millions of payments. [1] [link] [2] [this video]

Cited as source for inaccuracy of floats when storing currency.

View on Hacker News