JuliaDiff / JuliaDiff/FiniteDifferences.jl

BigFloats give Float64 accuracy — doesn't use the precision of the arguments

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Description

This is related to #98 — Float64 precision seems to be baked into the package, whereas it would be more flexible (and more Julian) to use the precision of the arguments. For example, using BigFloat in the following example only gives 16 digits of accuracy:

julia> using FiniteDifferences

julia> extrapolate_fdm(central_fdm(2, 1), sin, big"1.0")[1] - cos(big"1.0")
-6.71174699531887290713204926350530055924229547805016487900793424335727248883486e-17

In contrast, "manually" calling Richardson extrapolation with a 2nd-order finite-difference approximation gives 70 digits (in 10 iterations):

julia> using Richardson

julia> dsin,_ = extrapolate(big"0.1", rtol=0, power=2) do h
           @show Float64(h)
           (sin(1+h) - sin(1-h)) / 2h
       end
Float64(h) = 0.1
Float64(h) = 0.0125
Float64(h) = 0.0015625
Float64(h) = 0.0001953125
Float64(h) = 2.44140625e-5
Float64(h) = 3.0517578125e-6
Float64(h) = 3.814697265625e-7
Float64(h) = 4.76837158203125e-8
Float64(h) = 5.960464477539063e-9
Float64(h) = 7.450580596923829e-10
(0.5403023058681397174009366074429766037323104206179222276700972553811007395485809, 3.557003874037244232691736616015521320518299017661431723628543167235436096570656e-70)

julia> dsin - cos(big"1.0")
3.44774105579695699101361233110829910923644073773066771188994182638266121185316e-70

So, someplace in FiniteDifferences is either hard-coding a tolerance (rather than using eps(float(x))), or "contaminating" the calculation with an inexact Float64 literal.

cc @hammy4815

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Research direction

Start by tracing central_fdm and extrapolate_fdm with BigFloat arguments, comparing their tolerance and step-size handling with the Richardson example in the issue. Look for Float64 literals or hard-coded tolerances, then verify that the existing BigFloat example preserves argument precision and achieves accuracy beyond Float64.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
julia
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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