NASC_Tut1
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karia.advaitNASC_Tut1
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karia.advaitNumerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
Tutorial – Week 1
Topic: Error Analysis
1. If x = 0.3721478693 and y = 0.3720230572, what is the relative error in the
computation of x − y using five decimal digits of accuracy?
(a) x − y = .
(b) If x and y are rounded to five decimal digits x∗ and y ∗ respectively, then
x∗ = , y∗ = , x∗ − y ∗ = .
(c) Relative error = .
2. Let X be a sufficiently large number which results in an overflow of memory on a
computing device. Let x be a sufficiently small number which results in underflow of
memory on the same computing device. Give the output of the following operations:
(i) X × x
x
(ii)
X
x
(iii)
x
3. For the following numbers x and their corresponding approximations xA , find the
number of significant digits in xA with respect to x:
(a) x = 451.01, xA = 451.023,
(b) x = −0.04518, xA = −0.045113,
(c) x = 23.4604, xA = 23.4213.
4. Let xA and yA be the approximations to x and y, respectively, such that the relative
errors Er (x) and Er (y) are very much smaller than 1. Show that:
(i) Er (xy) ≈ Er (x) + Er (y),
x
(ii) Er ≈ Er (x) − Er (y).
y
(This shows that relative errors propagate slowly with multiplication and division.)
5. Let x, y, and z be real numbers whose floating-point approximations in a com-
puting device coincide with x, y, and z, respectively. Show that the relative error
in computing x(y + z) equals ϵ1 + ϵ2 − ϵ1 ϵ2 , where ϵ1 = Er (fl(y + z)) and ϵ2 =
Er (fl(x × fl(y + z))).
1
6. Let xT be a real number. Let xA = 1.45 be an approximate value of xT with an
absolute error at most 0.001. The function f (x) = (5x)4 is evaluated at x = xA
instead of x = xT . Estimate the resulting absolute error.
7. Find the condition number for the following functions:
(a) f (x) = x2 ,
(b) f (x) = π x ,
(c) f (x) = bx , b(> 0) ∈ R.