Explained problems with reverse shooting

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Nuno Sempere 2020-09-24 13:51:43 +02:00
parent 9cd14d5dc7
commit 33eddd2fb3

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@ -42,3 +42,27 @@ print(x)
```
The two examples should give the same results, but don't.
### Why reverse shooting doesn't work
Consider this example:
```r
## Stylized forward shooting
x <- 0
for(i in c(1:200)){
x <- x + 7^i
}
## Stylized reverse shooting
y <- x
for(i in c(200:1)){
y <- y - 7^i
}
print(y)
# [1] -3.762262199769919175323e+152
```
Here, `y` should at the end be 0, but floating point errors ensure that it isn't. Given that our variables grow exponentially, we work with very large numbers and reverse shooting encounters similar errors.