On the use of integer arithmetic to achieve confirmably correct computation

摘要

AbstractAn example is provided from biostatistics to show that transformation to a unit normal deviate can be inadvisable. This is used to motivate a definition of commensurable units of measurement. An argument is presented to show that a unit cell size can be determined that is termed the ‘least distinguishable difference’. The recommended commensurable unit is obtained by reseating the least distinguishable difference to unity. Thus, the data are transformed to Integer‐valued variates.Since the transformed data are integer‐valued and optimally ranged for integer accumulation, this is recommended. On most computers integer overflow is detectable, therefore in the absence of overflow one is assured that the intervening computation is correct.A few concluding remarks are a