Error

Analysis

Protima Dash, Senior

Lecturer (Mathematics) @
DIU
 Protima Dash, Senior Lecturer @ DIU

Q. What is Numerical Methods?

Ans: A numerical method is a complete and unambiguous set of procedures for the solution of
a problem, together with computable error estimates. The study and implementation of
such methods is the province of numerical analysis.

Q. What are uses of numerical methods in computer science?

Ans: There are so many uses for numerical methods, it is impossible to list them all. But
essentially, we can cover first the basic math problems they can be used for, which are often:

 Computing integrals and derivatives

 Solving differential equations
 Building models based on data, be it through interpolation, Least Square, or other
methods
 Root finding and numerical optimization
 Estimating the solution to a set of linear and nonlinear equations
 Computational geometry
There’s other areas I haven’t listed, but that’s some of the common fundamental uses. With
respect to real world problems, here are some examples where numerical methods are used:

 Development and computation of optimal control algorithms

 Development of high fidelity simulations to model viscous flow around a race car to
see if the wing designs generate sufficient down force
 Machine learning algorithms, like estimating optimal weights of parametric models
using only subsets of the full dataset (like stochastic gradient descent)
 Photorealistic renderer
 Design optimization based on simulation and multi-objective optimization
formulations
 Game Engines
There are many more uses for numerical methods out there, but this will hopefully show a range
of areas to prove its uses are broad.
Numerical Error:

There are two kinds of numbers such as exact and approximate numbers. The exact numbers are
2 3
1, 2, 5, , , ,... ...,  , e, ..., etc. The approximate numbers are representations of
5 2
exact numbers to a certain degree of accuracy. Thus, 3.1416 is an approximate number of  and
3.14159265 is another approximate number of  .

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 Protima Dash, Senior Lecturer @ DIU

Error: The error of a quantity is the difference between it’s true value and approximate. It is
denoted by E. If the true value is X and approximate value is x then the error of the quantity is
given by,
E  X x

Absolute Error: The absolute error of a quantity is the absolute value of the difference
between the true value X and the approximate value x. It is denoted by EA .

i.e, EA  X  x

Relative Error: The relative error of a quantity is the ratio of it’s absolute error to it’s true
value. It is denoted by ER .
EA
i.e, ER 
X

Percentage Error: The percentage error of a quantity is 100 times of it’s relative error. It
is denoted by E p .
i.e, E p  100 ER

Problem-01: An approximate value of  is 3.1428571 and true value is 3.1415926. Find the
absolute, relative and percentage errors.
Solution: We have, true value X  3.1415926 and approximate value
The absolute error is,
EA  X  x
 3.1415926  3.1428571
 0.0012645
 0.0012645 A round-off error, also called
The relative error is, rounding error, is the difference
between the calculated approximation
EA
ER  of a number and its exact
X mathematical value due to rounding.
0.0012645

3.1415926
 0.000402
The percentage error is,

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 Protima Dash, Senior Lecturer @ DIU

E p  100 ER
 100  0.000402
 0.0402

Note: If the number X is rounded to N decimal places, then E A 

1
2
10  N 

Problem-02: Find the absolute, relative and percentage errors of the number 8.6 if both of its
digits are correct.
Solution: The given number is X  8.6
Since both digits are correct so N  1
The absolute error is,

EA 
1
2
101 

 0.05
The relative error is,
EA
ER 
X
0.05

8.6
 0.0058

The percentage error is,

E p  100 ER
 100  0.0058
 0.58

Problem-03: Evaluate the sum S  2 3 5 to 4 significant digits and find its

absolute, relative and percentage errors.
Solution: we have, 2  1.414 , 3  1.732, 5  2.236
 S  1.414  1.732  2.236
 5.382
Since the values of 2, 3 and 5 are rounded of three decimal places, so N  3 .e
The absolute error is,

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 Protima Dash, Senior Lecturer @ DIU

EA 
1
2
103   103   103 
1
2
1
2
 0.0005  0.0005  0.0005
 0.0015
The absolute error shows that the sum is correct to 3 significant digits only.
Hence we take S  5.38
The relative error is,
EA
ER 
X
0.0015

5.38
 0.00028
The percentage error is,
E p  100 ER
 100  0.00028
 0.028
For Practices
1) Define percentage error, absolute error with example.

2) Evaluate the sum S = √𝟑 + √𝟓 + √𝟕 + √𝟏𝟏 to 4 significant digits and find its

percentage error, absolute error, relative error?
3) Find the absolute, relative and percentage errors of the number 5.2356 if 4
significant digits are correct.
4) Evaluate the sum S = √𝟏𝟏 + √𝟐𝟏 + √𝟑𝟏 to 5 significant digits and find its
E A , ER , EP ?
5) Find the absolute, relative and percentage errors of the number 0.3576 if 2
significant digits are correct.