[R] Rounding problem R vs Excel.

[Rolf Turner]

David A. Paul wrote:

> I don't have the reference, but a biologist friend of mine once
> showed me a refereed journal article that purported to demonstrate
> numerical errors made by MSExcel.  This would have been Excel97 or
> Excel2000... In any case, the journal's scope was biological in
> nature and the article was of interest since Excel is heavily used in
> that community.

An excellent source of information about the incompetence of Excel
as a statistical package can be found on Jonathan Cryer's web
page at

	http://www.stat.uiowa.edu/~jcryer/JSMTalk2001.pdf

Some incredible howlers from their ``help'' pages are given, as
are a number of useful references.  (None from the biological
literature however.  If David Paul could dig up the reference
mentioned by his biologist friend, it would be useful.)

					cheers,

						Rolf Turner
						rolf at math.unb.ca