Loss Of Significance

In numerical analysis, catastrophic cancellation is the phenomenon that subtracting good approximations to two nearby numbers may yield a very bad approximation to the difference of the original numbers.

For example, if there are two studs, one $L_1 = 254.5\,\text$ long and the other $L_2 = 253.5\,\text$ long, and they are measured with a ruler that is good only to the centimeter, then the approximations could come out to be $\tilde L_1 = 255\,\text$ and $\tilde L_2 = 253\,\text$. These may be good approximations, in relative error, to the true lengths: the approximations are in error by less than 2% of the true lengths, $, L_1 - \tilde L_1, /, L_1, < 2\%$.

However, if the ''approximate'' lengths are subtracted, the difference will be $\tilde L_1 - \tilde L_2 = 255\,\text - 253\,\text = 2\,\text$, even though the true difference between the lengths is $L_1 - L_2 = 254.5\,\text - 253.5\,\text = 1\,\text$. The difference of the approximations, $2\,\text$, is in error by 100% of the magnitude of the difference of the true values, $1\,\text$.

Catastrophic cancellation may happen even if the difference is computed exactly, as in the example above—it is not a property of any particular kind of arithmetic like floating-point arithmetic; rather, it is inherent to subtraction, when the ''inputs'' are approximations themselves. Indeed, in floating-point arithmetic, when the inputs are close enough, the floating-point difference is computed exactly, by the Sterbenz lemma—there is no rounding error introduced by the floating-point subtraction operation.

Formal analysis

Formally, catastrophic cancellation happens because subtraction is ill-conditioned at nearby inputs: even if approximations $\tilde x = x (1 + \delta_x)$ and $\tilde y = y (1 + \delta_y)$ have small relative errors $, \delta_x, = , x - \tilde x, /, x,$ and $, \delta_y, = , y - \tilde y, /, y,$ from true values $x$ and $y$, respectively, the relative error of the approximate ''difference'' $\tilde x - \tilde y$ from the true difference $x - y$ is inversely proportional to the true difference:

$\begin \tilde x - \tilde y &= x (1 + \delta_x) - y (1 + \delta_y) = x - y + x \delta_x - y \delta_y \\ &= x - y + (x - y) \frac \\ &= (x - y) \biggr(1 + \frac\biggr). \end$

Thus, the relative error of the exact difference $\tilde x - \tilde y$ of the approximations from the difference $x - y$ of the true numbers is

$\left, \frac\.$

which can be arbitrarily large if the true inputs $x$ and $y$ are close.

In numerical algorithms

Subtracting nearby numbers in floating-point arithmetic does not always cause catastrophic cancellation, or even any error—by the Sterbenz lemma, if the numbers are close enough the floating-point difference is exact.
But cancellation may ''amplify'' errors in the inputs that arose from rounding in other floating-point arithmetic.

Example: Difference of squares

Given numbers $x$ and $y$, the naive attempt to compute the mathematical function
$x^2 - y^2$
by the floating-point arithmetic
$\operatorname(\operatorname(x^2) - \operatorname(y^2))$
is subject to catastrophic cancellation when $x$ and $y$ are close in magnitude, because the subtraction can expose the rounding errors in the squaring.
The alternative factoring
$(x + y) (x - y)$,
evaluated by the floating-point arithmetic
$\operatorname(\operatorname(x + y) \cdot \operatorname(x - y))$,
avoids catastrophic cancellation because it avoids introducing rounding error leading into the subtraction.

For example, if
$x = 1 + 2^ \approx 1.0000000018626451$
and
$y = 1 + 2^ \approx 1.0000000009313226$,
then the true value of the difference
$x^2 - y^2$
is
$2^ \cdot (1 + 2^ + 2^) \approx 1.8626451518330422 \times 10^$.
In IEEE 754 binary64 arithmetic, evaluating the alternative factoring
$(x + y) (x - y)$
gives the correct result exactly (with no rounding), but evaluating the naive expression
$x^2 - y^2$
gives the floating-point number
$2^ = 1.8626451\underline \times 10^$,
of which less than half the digits are correct and the other (underlined) digits reflect the missing terms $2^ + 2^$, lost due to rounding when calculating the intermediate squared values.

Example: Complex arcsine

When computing the complex arcsine function, one may be tempted to use the logarithmic formula directly:

$\arcsin(z) = i \log \bigl(\sqrt - i z\bigr).$

However, suppose $z = i y$ for $y \ll 0$.
Then $\sqrt \approx -y$ and $i z = -y$; call the difference between them $\varepsilon$—a very small difference, nearly zero.
If $\sqrt$ is evaluated in floating-point arithmetic giving

$\operatorname\Bigl(\sqrt\Bigr) = \sqrt(1 + \delta)$

with any error $\delta \ne 0$, where $\operatorname(\cdots)$ denotes floating-point rounding, then computing the difference

$\sqrt(1 + \delta) - i z$

of two nearby numbers, both very close to $-y$, may amplify the error $\delta$ in one input by a factor of $1/\varepsilon$—a very large factor because $\varepsilon$ was nearly zero.
For instance, if $z = -1234567 i$, the true value of $\arcsin(z)$ is approximately $-14.71937803983977i$, but using the naive logarithmic formula in IEEE 754 binary64 arithmetic may give $-14.719\underlinei$, with only five out of sixteen digits correct and the remainder (underlined) all garbage.

In the case of $z = i y$ for $y < 0$, using the identity $\arcsin(z) = -\arcsin(-z)$ avoids cancellation because $\sqrt = \sqrt \approx -y$ but $i (-z) = -i z = y$, so the subtraction is effectively addition with the same sign which does not cancel.

Example: Radix conversion

Numerical constants in software programs are often written in decimal, such as in the C fragment double x = 1.000000000000001; to declare and initialize an IEEE 754 binary64 variable named x.
However, $1.000000000000001$ is not a binary64 floating-point number; the nearest one, which x will be initialized to in this fragment, is $1.0000000000000011102230246251565404236316680908203125 = 1 + 5\cdot 2^$.
Although the radix conversion from decimal floating-point to binary floating-point only incurs a small relative error, catastrophic cancellation may amplify it into a much larger one:

double x = 1.000000000000001; // rounded to 1 + 5*2^
double y = 1.000000000000002; // rounded to 1 + 9*2^
double z = y - x; // difference is exactly 4*2^

The difference $1.000000000000002 - 1.000000000000001$ is $0.000000000000001 = 1.0\times 10^$.
The relative errors of x from $1.000000000000001$ and of y from $1.000000000000002$ are both below $10^ = 0.0000000000001\%$, and the floating-point subtraction y - x is computed exactly by the Sterbenz lemma.

But even though the inputs are good approximations, and even though the subtraction is computed exactly, the difference of the ''approximations'' $\tilde y - \tilde x = (1 + 9\cdot 2^) - (1 + 5\cdot 2^) = 4\cdot 2^ \approx 8.88\times 10^$ has a relative error of over $11\%$ from the difference $1.0\times 10^$ of the original values as written in decimal: catastrophic cancellation amplified a tiny error in radix conversion into a large error in the output.

Benign cancellation

Cancellation is sometimes useful and desirable in numerical algorithms.
For example, the 2Sum and Fast2Sum algorithms both rely on such cancellation after a rounding error in order to exactly compute what the error was in a floating-point addition operation as a floating-point number itself.

The function
$\log(1 + x)$,
if evaluated naively at points
$0 < x \lll 1$,
will lose most of the digits of $x$ in rounding
$\operatorname(1 + x)$.
However, the function
$\log(1 + x)$
itself is well-conditioned at inputs near $0$.
Rewriting it as
$\log(1 + x) = x \frac$
exploits cancellation in
$\hat x := \operatorname(1 + x) - 1$
to avoid the error from
$\log(1 + x)$
evaluated directly.
This works because the cancellation in the numerator
$\log(\operatorname(1 + x)) = \hat x + O(\hat x^2)$
and the cancellation in the denominator
$\hat x = \operatorname(1 + x) - 1$
counteract each other; the function
$\mu(\xi) = \log(1 + \xi)/\xi$
is well-enough conditioned near zero that
$\mu(\hat x)$
gives a good approximation to
$\mu(x)$,
and thus
$x\cdot \mu(\hat x)$
gives a good approximation to
$x\cdot \mu(x) = \log(1 + x)$.

References

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Numerical analysis