This seems like a question better directed at those with some programming experience rather than just general Excel users, hence my asking on here as opposed to Superuser.
Is there any way, preferably through a function, to return epsilon (i.e. the smallest non-zero number representable in Excel's calculations)? If it's not retrievable through a function, is there a quick way to calculate it through a compact function?
To be clear, I'm not looking for a VBA-based solution, I'd like an Excel formula/ spreadsheet based solution that does not require running macros.
My searches online have mostly turned up discussions on how to display the symbol Epsilon.
Thanks.
Excel always operates on IEEE doubles.
A non-VBA expression that will get you the smallest non-denormalized floating point number greater than 0 is
=2^-1022
Machine epsilon, on the other hand, is the smallest number that can be added to 1 and result in a number that is greater than 1. For double precision it is given by
=2^-52