Generator

angle-floor

One function in the subspace library, called 5 times across 5 essays. Below: what it draws at its defaults, what it draws at every value an essay asks for, the 30 claims it put to the test while drawing them, and where it stands against the rule this site is named for.

At its defaults it draws the computed angle against the true one, two formulations. Two curves of computed angle against true angle on logarithmic axes. One follows the diagonal all the way down; the other leaves it and flattens at a fixed level.

angle-floor is one function in lib/figures/subspace.js — subspaces — the gap, the eigenvector, and the plane that survives both. Everything below came out of it during this build, at arguments taken from the essays rather than invented for this page. A figure here is the figure a reader meets in an essay, and if the generator changes, this page changes with it.

At its defaults

Drawn even though every essay passes arguments — which on this site is every essay, at 100% of placements since the standard pass. A default nothing exercises is a trap for the next essay to call this with none, and this is the page where a default that has drifted from the figures around it becomes visible.

The computed angle against the true one, two formulationsTwo curves of computed angle against true angle on logarithmic axes. One follows the diagonal all the way down; the other leaves it and flattens at a fixed level.10⁻¹⁴10⁻¹²10⁻¹⁰10⁻⁸10⁻⁶10⁻⁴10⁻²10⁻¹⁵10⁻¹³10⁻¹¹10⁻⁹10⁻⁷10⁻⁵10⁻³the true anglethe angle computed√(2u) = 1.49·10⁻⁸arcsine of ‖(I − QQᵀ)Q₂‖arccosine of σ(Q₁ᵀQ₂)two routes, one of which has a floorfloor of the arccosine route1.5·10⁻⁸√(2u)1.5·10⁻⁸worst overstatement1.5·10⁶angles returned as exactly zero3a plane tilted by a known anglethe flat part is the instrument, not the data

Two curves of computed angle against true angle on logarithmic axes. One follows the diagonal all the way down; the other leaves it and flattens at a fixed level.

n: 8

The arguments are the ones Cancellation takes the answer, not a digit passes. A value drawn at the generator's defaults instead would be a picture no essay asked for and no assertion has been run against.

The computed angle against the true one, two formulationsTwo curves of computed angle against true angle on logarithmic axes. One follows the diagonal all the way down; the other leaves it and flattens at a fixed level.10⁻¹⁴10⁻¹²10⁻¹⁰10⁻⁸10⁻⁶10⁻⁴10⁻²10⁻¹⁵10⁻¹³10⁻¹¹10⁻⁹10⁻⁷10⁻⁵10⁻³the true anglethe angle computed√(2u) = 1.49·10⁻⁸arcsine of ‖(I − QQᵀ)Q₂‖arccosine of σ(Q₁ᵀQ₂)two routes, one of which has a floorfloor of the arccosine route1.5·10⁻⁸√(2u)1.5·10⁻⁸worst overstatement1.5·10⁶angles returned as exactly zero3a plane tilted by a known anglethe flat part is the instrument, not the data

Two curves of computed angle against true angle on logarithmic axes. One follows the diagonal all the way down; the other leaves it and flattens at a fixed level.

What it checked while drawing

Every figure above asserted its own claims on the way to being drawn, and a claim that failed would have failed the build rather than drawn a wrong picture. Those assertions used to leave no trace at all: a passing one returned true and the only evidence the figure had checked anything was that nothing crashed. The list below is what they actually said, collected by running this generator with an observer installed — not a description of what it is believed to check.

30 distinct claims across 2 sets of arguments, grouped below by shape — because most of them are one sentence with a different number in it, and how many separate times that sentence was put to the test is the informative part.

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 0.01 — asserted 3 times

a dimension the bases can be drawn from

and somewhere on the sweep it overstates the angle by three decades

matmul shapes agree

so at a small enough angle it is wrong by orders of magnitude, in one direction or the other

the floor of the arccosine route against √(2u) agree

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻¹⁰

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻¹¹

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻¹²

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻¹³

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻¹⁴

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻⁴

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻⁵

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻⁶

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻⁷

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻⁸

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 10⁻⁹

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻¹⁰

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻¹¹

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻¹²

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻¹³

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻¹⁴

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻⁴

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻⁵

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻⁶

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻⁷

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻⁸

the sine route returns the angle it was given at θ = 3.2·10⁻⁹

Against the rule

The rule does not apply to it. It factorises nothing, so there is no residual it could be withholding. That is worth stating rather than leaving blank: a site that reported the rule as satisfied by every generator would be counting mostly generators the rule never reached.

Across the library: the rule bites on 52 of 99 generators — 37 print a residual and 15 are exempt with a published reason; 47 factorise nothing. Read from lib/residual-rule.js, which is the same body the gate enforces from, and the gate's last check fails the build if this page and it disagree about any generator.

Where it is called

Changing this generator changes every figure on this list. That is what makes the list worth publishing rather than keeping in a check script.

The arithmetic underneath

Cancellation takes the answer, not a digit

Subtracting two nearly equal numbers is exact. That is what makes it dangerous — the subtraction introduces no error at all, it exposes error the operands were already carrying, and the exposure can consume every significant figure at once.

Orthogonality, measured

Orthogonal is a number

"Q is orthogonal" is a claim about a measurable quantity, ‖QᵀQ − I‖, and on the eight-by-eight Hilbert matrix two standard algorithms return 10⁻¹⁵ and 1 for it. The one that returns 1 still reconstructs the matrix perfectly, which is why nothing warns you.

Eigenvalues, singular values, rank

Symmetry is worth more than precision

A symmetric matrix gives up its eigenvalues to full accuracy however ill-conditioned it is. An unsymmetric one can move them by the eighth root of a perturbation, so the rounding involved in merely storing the matrix shifts the spectrum by a hundredth.

Eigenvalues, singular values, rank

The gap decides the eigenvector

A symmetric matrix's eigenvalues move by at most the size of the perturbation, whatever the spectrum looks like. Its eigenvectors are governed by a completely different quantity — the distance to the neighbouring eigenvalue — and at a gap of 10⁻⁹ the same perturbation turns them through 27°.

Eigenvalues, singular values, rank

The plane survives what its vectors do not

At a gap of 10⁻⁹ a perturbation of 10⁻⁶ turns the two eigenvectors through half a radian and turns the plane they span through 7.6·10⁻⁸ — a ratio of six million. Ask for the subspace instead of the vectors and a hopeless computation becomes a well-conditioned one, with no change to the arithmetic.

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