Why would you use float over double, or double over long double?

Question

I\'m still a beginner at programming and I always have more questions than our book or internet searches can answer (unless I missed something). So I apologize in advance if

Answer 1

You might be interested in seeing the answer posted here Should I use double or float?

But it boils down to memory footprint vs the amount of precision you need for a given situation. In a physics engine, you might care more about precision, so it would make more sense to use a double or long double.

Bottom line: You should only use as much precision as you need for a given algorithm