Faster inverse gamma and factorial for the WP 34S

[rprosperi]

(02-08-2015 09:22 PM)BarryMead Wrote:  

(02-08-2015 08:56 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  I (and I suspect other lurkers) would like to know how it applies, and why such precision can have practical use or impact.

From a mathematical perspective the "Algorithm" designer does not know how the algorithm will be used, or how accurate the requirements of it's application will be. So he strives to achieve the "Maximum Possible" accuracy given the limits of the floating point number system used in the implementation.

Sure, this is certainly correct and admirable when the balance of effort and resources are justified by the need. I'm just asking about the need, as I don't see the practical applications driving this need.

As truly impressive as the 34S is in its functional breadth, depth and accuracy, there are probably thousands of areas, which if examined with enough close scrutiny, also could need similar tweaking. I am curious why it's warranted here. Note my comments are due to simply not knowing how a function's innaccurcy in the 34th digit matters to any real-world application.

Maybe the answer is to simply fix it because we now know it's broken - which is a perfectly fine explanation; it just seems like there is more to it. Thanks for your patience with my curiosity.