in reply to Floating point factorials

BUK's reference notwithstanding, I don't think you want to get in bed with using floating point numbers in calculation of probabilities (would you mind going back and editing your spelling, so future readers can find your nodes?) because of some inherent properties of using FP in binary-based computation.

See, for example, What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point... and similarly-titled articles directing themselves specifically to "Programmers." See also, using Google or Super Search, the many SOPW nodes posted by programmers who've been bitten by the FP bug.

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Re^2: Floating point factorials (leap)
by tye (Sage) on May 14, 2011 at 16:02 UTC

    I don't see how that issue with floating point (that all programmers should be familiar with) sensibly leads to a conclusion that floating point is just inappropriate for computing things, including probabilities.

    - tye        

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