Generator

block-deflation

One function in the blocksize library, called 6 times across 6 essays. Below: what it draws at its defaults, what it draws at every value an essay asks for, the 7 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 width of a block of 4, at every step. Three step functions against the step count. A block of 4 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 3 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.

block-deflation is one function in lib/figures/blocksize.js — how wide the block should be — the multiplicity, and the deflation that never fires. 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 width of a block of 4, at every stepThree step functions against the step count. A block of 4 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 3 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.01234567891001234stepcolumns in the blockindependent columnsone column repeatedinside an invariant planewhen a block narrowsrandom: width at the end4repeated: width at the end3invariant: vectors found2the mechanism worksand nothing a random start does sets it off

Three step functions against the step count. A block of 4 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 3 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.

block: 2

The arguments are the ones An eigenvalue one vector cannot see 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 width of a block of 2, at every stepThree step functions against the step count. A block of 2 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 1 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.012345678910012stepcolumns in the blockindependent columnsone column repeatedinside an invariant planewhen a block narrowsrandom: width at the end2repeated: width at the end1invariant: vectors found2the mechanism worksand nothing a random start does sets it off

Three step functions against the step count. A block of 2 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 1 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.

block: 4

The arguments are the ones How wide the block should be 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 width of a block of 4, at every stepThree step functions against the step count. A block of 4 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 3 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.01234567891001234stepcolumns in the blockindependent columnsone column repeatedinside an invariant planewhen a block narrowsrandom: width at the end4repeated: width at the end3invariant: vectors found2the mechanism worksand nothing a random start does sets it off

Three step functions against the step count. A block of 4 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 3 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.

block: 6

The arguments are the ones Rank is a decision 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 width of a block of 6, at every stepThree step functions against the step count. A block of 6 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 5 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.0123456789100123456stepcolumns in the blockindependent columnsone column repeatedinside an invariant planewhen a block narrowsrandom: width at the end6repeated: width at the end5invariant: vectors found2the mechanism worksand nothing a random start does sets it off

Three step functions against the step count. A block of 6 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 5 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.

block: 5

The arguments are the ones The factor is not sparse 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 width of a block of 5, at every stepThree step functions against the step count. A block of 5 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 4 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.012345678910012345stepcolumns in the blockindependent columnsone column repeatedinside an invariant planewhen a block narrowsrandom: width at the end5repeated: width at the end4invariant: vectors found2the mechanism worksand nothing a random start does sets it off

Three step functions against the step count. A block of 5 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 4 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.

block: 3

The arguments are the ones What the symbolic phase can only bound 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 width of a block of 3, at every stepThree step functions against the step count. A block of 3 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 2 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.0123456789100123stepcolumns in the blockindependent columnsone column repeatedinside an invariant planewhen a block narrowsrandom: width at the end3repeated: width at the end2invariant: vectors found2the mechanism worksand nothing a random start does sets it off

Three step functions against the step count. A block of 3 independent columns keeps its width at every step. A block with one column copied from another loses that column before the first product with A and keeps 2 for the rest of the run. A block whose columns all lie in the span of two eigenvectors starts at 2 and ends at 0 after one step, having found the whole subspace.

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.

7 distinct claims across 6 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.

a block wide enough to have something to lose

a random block never narrows

a repeated column is dropped at once

and an invariant block runs out

enough steps for a width to change if it is going to

Jacobi needs a symmetric matrix

matmul shapes agree

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 70 of 151 generators — 55 print a residual and 15 are exempt with a published reason; 81 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.

Eigenvalues, singular values, rank

An eigenvalue one vector cannot see

A matrix with an exactly doubled eigenvalue at 10. Twelve Lanczos steps find it once; twenty-four find it once, on a Krylov space of dimension 23 in a 24-dimensional problem. A block of two vectors finds it twice. This is not slow convergence — the second copy is not in the space.

Eigenvalues, singular values, rank

How wide the block should be

A block narrower than the multiplicity does not converge slowly — it never returns the missing copy at all. Above the multiplicity every extra column buys iterations at about ten products with A each. And the mechanism that is supposed to make the choice unimportant never fires from a random start.

Eigenvalues, singular values, rank

Rank is a decision

A floating-point matrix does not have a rank. It has a spectrum of singular values, and somewhere in that spectrum is a place where the values stop being signal and start being noise. Deciding where is a judgement, and the evidence for it is a gap.

Sparsity, and what elimination costs

The factor is not sparse

A sparse matrix has a factor that is not sparse, and the gap between them is the entire reason iterative methods exist. The entries elimination creates can be counted before any arithmetic runs, from the graph alone.

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.

Sparsity, and what elimination costs

What the symbolic phase can only bound

Without pivoting, the fill can be computed from the graph and the count is exact — 233 predicted, 233 measured. With pivoting it is 233 predicted and 242 measured, and what survives is a bound that is right at every threshold and loose by 1.7 times at the largest grid drawn.

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