What Is the Best Way to Add Large Number of Integers: Number-by-Number As Computers Do Or Lowest-Digits-Than-Next-Digits-Etc As We Humans Do?

Authors

Olga Kosheleva, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

12-2016

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-16-96

To appear in Mathematical Structures and Modeling, 2017, Vol. 42.

Abstract

When we need to add several integers, computers add them one by one, while we usually add them digit by digit: first, we add all the lowest digits, then we add all next lowest digits, etc. Which way is faster? Should we learn from computers or should we teach computers to add several integers our way?

In this paper, we show that the computer way is faster. This adds one more example to the list of cases when computer-based arithmetic algorithms are much more efficient than the algorithms that we humans normally use.