Spreadsheet software and significant numbers

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StevieT

706 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 34

#133479 23-Oct-2013 16:19

Hi there,

If I perform the following calculation in Excel:
=100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000+50

I obtain
=100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

This is due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeric_precision_in_Microsoft_Excel

Is there any Spreadsheet software out there that, when performing =100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000+50, I would obtain 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,050?

I've seen various add-ons to Excel to increase precision, but am curious as if there is any software out there like Excel, so I don't have to mess with commands - keep A1+A2 the same (in comparison with the Xlprecision add-in I would need to type qldadd(A1,A2) - http://precisioncalc.com/What_is_xlPrecision.html. It becomes complex when in a single cell I have additions as well as multiplications occurring (bracketed of course), and don't really want to perform those in a single cell each.)

Many thanks,
Stevie

k1wi

484 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 111

#920485 23-Oct-2013 16:31

What sort of work are you doing that requires such accuracy from a spreadsheet application?

gjm

810 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 122

#920486 23-Oct-2013 16:32

calculating Apple's quarterly profit?

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Ouranos

118 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 41

#920651 23-Oct-2013 20:45

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

For context, that's about the number of atoms in the universe.

I'm not aware of any spreadsheets that natively handle more than 15 significant figures, though various add-ins will do the job. You mentioned Precision Calc. Another option is Xnumbers, which can handle up to 32760 significant figures.

Conversely, other programming languages can do what you want. For example, Haskell can work with arbitrary precision integers.