From the original SynthMaker forum (2004–2014), with its members’ names and dates.
tester ·
I'm taking a float primitive and type: 299 792 458 - is of course the speed of light. Connecting float label or editbox to display that value on pannel, and what I see? 299 792 448! Even during typing. Which means that according to synthmaker - objects travelling in that +10 m/s range - are just moving above the speed of light and should not exist. Or in different direction - butterfly effect.
So my questions here are following.
Is synthmaker using approximation when doing internal calculations?
How to get right display of long values?
Hopefully SM is not like CERN with their FTL neutrinos and missing cables 😀
cyto ·
Ha! 🙂 I'm afraid there is no conspiracy here. Don't blame SM, blame the IEEE. The specifications for floating decimal representations of numbers, while allowing a large range of numbers to be represented, sometimes causes accuracy to be lost. With only 32 bits available, some corners need to be cut. (before you jump on the "we need 64-bit!" bandwagon, know that this number couldn't be represented in that format either). I have this site bookmarked and use quite often to visualize float-32 representation.
-cyto
tester ·
I found a way. On visual (gui) side - values are sent as strings, and calculations are made on floats. More I was worried about what is shown on the screen than such small approximation which will be rounded somewhere anyway.
I don't know if "we need 64-bit", but it's a good point to revisit the philosophy of "numbers" in SM. At least good that it can be done in different way.
"Geez - who needs the speed of light in SM?!" - well, I was asked to do a small app, that converts variety of frequency/time related parameters into acoustic representations. So if you have veeeery slow frequency of Earth rotating around the Sun - then the acoustic representation of that 365.25 day cycle, in 32 octaves higher - gives about 136.19Hz. Music of the spheres. Or if you have a green colour of electromagnetic light, then the acoustic representation is around note C (interesting, isn't it? People connect the octave of light in linear way, making C = red and so on, and here - we see, that C is... green, and G is red 🙂. Even more interesting is, how some synesthesia people perceive colour of sounds). Even energetic states (eV) and simple delays can be transformed that way. Why people do this? I don't know. But somewhat it is fun to see all these large-scale and small-scale phenomenons and their relationships in a one-octave sonic bottle.
😉
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