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Last Word is Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s long-running series in which readers give scientific answers to each other’s questions, ranging from the minutiae of everyday life to absurd astronomical hypotheticals. To answer a question or ask a new one, email lastword@newscientist.com
How much money is gained or lost in computer rounding errors in, say, a year? And what happens to this money?
Mel Earp
Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK
The problem of rounding in financial calculations isn’t, in and of itself, a computer problem. It has been with us almost since the invention of money.
Try to divide £1 into…
