why there is a small error in these simple calculations?

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3e-4-3*10^-4
sum=0;
for i=1:1000
sum=sum+0.001;
end
sum_output=sum
this gives an answer of -5.421010862427522e-20 and 1.000000000000001
it should be obviously 0 and 1. what happened during the running of program??
  1 Comment
Stephen23
Stephen23 on 11 Apr 2019
Edited: Stephen23 on 11 Apr 2019
"it should be obviously 0 and 1. "
Nope. Not with binary floating point numbers.
Search this forum for "floating point" and you will learn the reasons why this happens.

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Answers (1)

Star Strider
Star Strider on 11 Apr 2019
See the documentation on Floating-Point Numbers (link).

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