Abstract
It is often assumed that for treating numerical (or experimental) data on continuous transitions the formal analysis derived from the renormalization-group theory can only be applied over a narrow temperature range, the "critical region"; outside this region correction terms proliferate rendering attempts to apply the formalism hopeless. This pessimistic conclusion follows largely from a choice of scaling variables and scaling expressions, which is traditional but very inefficient for data covering wide temperature ranges. An alternative "extended scaling" approach can be made where the choice of scaling variables and scaling expressions is rationalized in the light of well established high-temperature series expansion developments. We present the extended scaling approach in detail, and outline the numerical technique used to study the three-dimensional (3D) Ising model. After a discussion of the exact expressions for the historic 1D Ising spin chain model as an illustration, an exhaustive analysis of high quality numerical data on the canonical simple cubic lattice 3D Ising model is given. It is shown that in both models, with appropriate scaling variables and scaling expressions (in which leading correction terms are taken into account where necessary), critical behavior extends from T-c up to infinite temperature.