(SR-52) Arithmetic Paradoxes (W. Kahan)

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An extract from AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: The Texas Instruments SR-52, W. Kahan, ELECTRONICS RESEARCH LABORATORY (College of Engineering) University of California (Berkeley), Memorandum No. UCB/ERL M77/23, 6 April 1977

"This report responds to repeated requests for explanations of the arithmetic paradoxes perpetrated by the T.I. SR-52 …
§0 So What?
Of course, all the anomalies to be described in this report are tiny, even negligible from some points of view. Engineers and scientists accustomed to slide rules cannot get upset over errors in the 7 sig. dec. They might get upset if I showed them grossly and unexpectedly wrong results in their own calculations, and often I alienate them in just that way. But alienation does not enlighten …
… I shall attempt to convey by example just this message:
One man's Negligible is another man's All …

§5 So What?
Please re-read §0 before proceeding to §6.

§6 Conclusion
Before I received letters concerning the SR-52 and what I say about it, I used to believe that no mathematical phenomenon could generate acrimony. I believe that still; the phenomena described above are not mathematical. They are psychological, social and economic phenomena …"

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