I use "banker's rounding". This is also called "round to even" rounding. When the digit being eliminated is a 5 you go up or down as needed to get to an even number. Unlike conventional rounding (where you round up on 5 or higher) banker's rounding does not have a slight positive bias in it. Bob Ammerman RAm Systems (contract development of high performance, high function, low-level software) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roman Black" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 11:48 AM Subject: Re: [OT]: Brain Burp Rounding?? > I was tabulating some data tonight, ie, doing > a division on my pocket calculator and then rounding > the number to three decimal places, then writing > the figure down on paper. > > How do people round numbers to the nearest decimal > place on their pocket calculators? > > My whole life I have checked if the last digit is > 5, then if so check the next digit is 5, etc, > then once you get to a non-5 round it up or down. > Hope that makes sense. > > So: > 3.12471 = 3.125 > 3.12441 = 3.124 > 3.1245551 = 3.124 > 3.1245556 = 3.125 > > This just can't be right! > How were you taught? I started using pocket > calculators when they had led digits, probably > before I was 10 years old. I'm sure in school we > were taught to round digits like that. ?? > -Roman > > -- > http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! > email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body > > -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body