Scaling Factor in Displays (MATRIX-END MATRIX command)

When a matrix contains very large or very small numbers, it may be necessary to use scientific notation to display the data. If you do not specify a display format, the matrix processor chooses a power-of-10 multiplier that will allow the largest value to be displayed, and it displays this multiplier on a heading line before the data. The multiplier is not displayed for each element in the matrix. The displayed values, multiplied by the power of 10 that is indicated in the heading, equal the actual values (possibly rounded).

  • Values that are very small, relative to the multiplier, are displayed as 0.
  • If you explicitly specify a scientific-notation format (Ew.d), each matrix element is displayed using that format. This permits you to display very large and very small numbers in the same matrix without losing precision.

Example

COMPUTE M = {.0000000001357, 2.468, 3690000000}.
PRINT M /TITLE "Default format".
PRINT M /FORMAT "E13" /TITLE "Explicit exponential format".
  • The first PRINT subcommand uses the default format with 109 as the multiplier for each element of the matrix. This results in the following output:

Note that the first element is displayed as 0 and the second is rounded to one significant digit.

  • An explicitly specified exponential format on the second PRINT subcommand allows each element to be displayed with full precision, as the following output shows: