Correctness of the standard posit quire model #
The standard quire model has raw-word round-trip laws, an exact characterization of the reserved NaR word, ordinary coefficient bounds, and rational semantics for integer dyadic conversion.
References #
- Posit Working Group, Standard for Posit Arithmetic (2022), March 2, 2022, Sections 3.4 and 5.11, https://posithub.org/docs/posit_standard-2.pdf.
The quire width is positive for every valid posit descriptor.
The canonical zero quire has integer coefficient zero.
The canonical NaR quire uses the reserved sign-bit coefficient.
A quire word equals NaR exactly when its signed coefficient is the reserved minimum.
Every stored quire coefficient lies in the inclusive signed range of its physical word.
A coefficient is ordinary exactly when the quire word is not the reserved NaR code.
Negation preserves the set of ordinary quire coefficients.
Any integer whose absolute magnitude is below the positive half-range is an ordinary quire coefficient.
The strict bound excludes both signed overflow and the reserved most-negative NaR word.
Encoding an ordinary coefficient preserves it exactly.
A coefficient outside the ordinary range, including the reserved minimum, becomes NaR.
Dyadic-to-quire scaling preserves exact value when the stored exponent is high enough.