MEP - Change Mathcad numerical infinity to IEEE 754 Infinity

[StuartBruff]

Mathcad Enhancement Proposal:  Change Mathcad's numerical representation of infinity to the IEEE 754 floating-point standard.

When dealing with large numbers, representing infinity as 10^307 can lead to numerical errors and yield ambiguous or unreadable results.

Note: Python math, NumPy, Mathematica and Matlab all give correct results.

I don't know why 2^1020 is allowable, but 2^n, where n:=1020, raises an error.

Stuart

(Numerical ∞ = 10³⁰⁷ has annoyed me since Mathsoft Mathcad days.  At least change ∞ to ⧜ (U+29DC Incomplete Infinity)

[StuartBruff]

Interesting.

Math Result display set to "General".

Stuart

[LucMeekes]

The 'Infinity' unit was introduced in Prime 6. Up to and including Prime 5 you'd get:

But the funny behaviour with 2^1020 was already present in Prime 2.

Success!
Luc

[StuartBruff]

Thanks, Luc.

Perhaps PTC can fix that problem at the same time as they implement an IEEE 754 Infinity.

Stuart

[StuartBruff]

By the Power of Grayvector and by the Magic of Mathcad’s Unit System, Werner’s work in another thread has inspired a technique for saving us from Thanos by transmogrifying an infinity stone into a very large number of kilograms,

I knew I'd find a use for a finite infinity.  Previously, I could only destroy them two at a time before the structure of the 64-bit floating-point universe threw an overflow error (which wouldn't happen with a proper IEEE 754 infinity).   But now I can handle all of them at once.

I’m not sure it’s a good enough reason to retain 10^307 as infinity, though. 

[Werner_E]

Unfortunately only one "Right' out of six:

BTW, you get correct results with the full version and using the symbolics:

in Prime as well as in MC15

[StuartBruff]

Thanks, Werner.  Looks like a copy & paste error on my part (I forgot to change the equality operator to division).

Compatibility with symbolic results (where meaningful) is another good reason to implement a proper IEEE 754 infinity rather than an arbitrarily large number, say, 𒌋𒐗 𒎙𒐖 𒑪 𒑪𒐘 𒑪𒐝 𒐝 𒎙𒐝 𒑪𒐜 𒎙𒐚 𒑩𒐗 𒌋𒐛 𒌍𒐕 𒑪𒐕 𒐚 𒑩.

(And if you're going to pick a big FP number, why 10³⁰⁷ rather than 2⁵³-1?)

Stuart