Hiya Goodfriar,

I think what you are quoting is taken out of context.

The only way in which I could think that there is a bit flop would have to be, by an introduced error or approximation in the algorithm, which may have been done for efficiency, ie speed purposes; the only other way would be, a rounding issue due to storing information to a specific precision. For storage, this precision must be determined and some numbers in the continuum of numbers, of course do not allow this.

Altough a bit flop is possible, at hardware level, though very rare, the software would usually detect this and give an exception to the the user. This is achieved in the normal course of event by using redundant bits to validate a pattern. The most basic of this is known as the parity bit.