Generator

cramer-backward

One function in the determinant library, called 12 times across 9 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 backward error of cramer's rule and of elimination on 11974 2×2 systems at 24 bits. The share of systems whose normwise backward error exceeds a given multiple of the unit roundoff. Elimination never exceeds 1.2u. Cramer's rule reaches 395u on the same systems, on a matrix whose condition number is 3.39·10⁶ and which elimination solved to 0.3u. The control curve, over uniformly random 2×2 systems, stops at 4.9u — so the failure belongs to the near-parallel family and not to a choice of scale.

cramer-backward is one function in lib/figures/determinant.js — the determinant — the scalar that answers none of the questions it is asked. 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.

Backward error of Cramer's rule and of elimination on 11974 2×2 systems at 24 bitsThe share of systems whose normwise backward error exceeds a given multiple of the unit roundoff. Elimination never exceeds 1.2u. Cramer's rule reaches 395u on the same systems, on a matrix whose condition number is 3.39·10⁶ and which elimination solved to 0.3u. The control curve, over uniformly random 2×2 systems, stops at 4.9u — so the failure belongs to the near-parallel family and not to a choice of scale.10⁻²10⁻¹110¹10²10³10⁴10⁻⁴10⁻³10⁻²10⁻¹1backward error, in units of ushare of systems above ituCramereliminationCramer, control24-bit arithmeticworst Cramer, in u395worst elimination, in u1.2control, worst Cramer4.9κ of the worst system3.4·10⁶one derivation, two computationsand only one of them is stable

The share of systems whose normwise backward error exceeds a given multiple of the unit roundoff. Elimination never exceeds 1.2u. Cramer's rule reaches 395u on the same systems, on a matrix whose condition number is 3.39·10⁶ and which elimination solved to 0.3u. The control curve, over uniformly random 2×2 systems, stops at 4.9u — so the failure belongs to the near-parallel family and not to a choice of scale.

bits: 53

The arguments are the ones A bound that is proved 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.

Backward error of Cramer's rule and of elimination on 12000 2×2 systems at 53 bitsThe share of systems whose normwise backward error exceeds a given multiple of the unit roundoff. Elimination never exceeds 1.4u. Cramer's rule reaches 248u on the same systems, on a matrix whose condition number is 3.37·10⁶ and which elimination solved to 0.3u. The control curve, over uniformly random 2×2 systems, stops at 6.9u — so the failure belongs to the near-parallel family and not to a choice of scale.10⁻²10⁻¹110¹10²10³10⁴10⁻⁴10⁻³10⁻²10⁻¹1backward error, in units of ushare of systems above ituCramereliminationCramer, control53-bit arithmeticworst Cramer, in u248worst elimination, in u1.4control, worst Cramer6.9κ of the worst system3.4·10⁶one derivation, two computationsand only one of them is stable

The share of systems whose normwise backward error exceeds a given multiple of the unit roundoff. Elimination never exceeds 1.4u. Cramer's rule reaches 248u on the same systems, on a matrix whose condition number is 3.37·10⁶ and which elimination solved to 0.3u. The control curve, over uniformly random 2×2 systems, stops at 6.9u — so the failure belongs to the near-parallel family and not to a choice of scale.

bits: 24

The arguments are the ones A rule that is correct and unusable 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.

Backward error of Cramer's rule and of elimination on 11974 2×2 systems at 24 bitsThe share of systems whose normwise backward error exceeds a given multiple of the unit roundoff. Elimination never exceeds 1.2u. Cramer's rule reaches 395u on the same systems, on a matrix whose condition number is 3.39·10⁶ and which elimination solved to 0.3u. The control curve, over uniformly random 2×2 systems, stops at 4.9u — so the failure belongs to the near-parallel family and not to a choice of scale.10⁻²10⁻¹110¹10²10³10⁴10⁻⁴10⁻³10⁻²10⁻¹1backward error, in units of ushare of systems above ituCramereliminationCramer, control24-bit arithmeticworst Cramer, in u395worst elimination, in u1.2control, worst Cramer4.9κ of the worst system3.4·10⁶one derivation, two computationsand only one of them is stable

The share of systems whose normwise backward error exceeds a given multiple of the unit roundoff. Elimination never exceeds 1.2u. Cramer's rule reaches 395u on the same systems, on a matrix whose condition number is 3.39·10⁶ and which elimination solved to 0.3u. The control curve, over uniformly random 2×2 systems, stops at 4.9u — so the failure belongs to the near-parallel family and not to a choice of scale.

bits: 16

The arguments are the ones A rule that is correct and unusable 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.

Backward error of Cramer's rule and of elimination on 10522 2×2 systems at 16 bitsThe share of systems whose normwise backward error exceeds a given multiple of the unit roundoff. Elimination never exceeds 1.1u. Cramer's rule reaches 63u on the same systems, on a matrix whose condition number is 6.98·10⁴ and which elimination solved to 0.0u. The control curve, over uniformly random 2×2 systems, stops at 3.0u — so the failure belongs to the near-parallel family and not to a choice of scale.10⁻²10⁻¹110¹10²10³10⁴10⁻⁴10⁻³10⁻²10⁻¹1backward error, in units of ushare of systems above ituCramereliminationCramer, control16-bit arithmeticworst Cramer, in u63worst elimination, in u1.1control, worst Cramer3κ of the worst system7·10⁴one derivation, two computationsand only one of them is stable

The share of systems whose normwise backward error exceeds a given multiple of the unit roundoff. Elimination never exceeds 1.1u. Cramer's rule reaches 63u on the same systems, on a matrix whose condition number is 6.98·10⁴ and which elimination solved to 0.0u. The control curve, over uniformly random 2×2 systems, stops at 3.0u — so the failure belongs to the near-parallel family and not to a choice of scale.

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 4 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 precision the sweep is calibrated at

and Cramer's rule does not

by more than a factor of ten at every precision

elimination stays at the unit roundoff on every system

enough systems to reach the tail and few enough to afford

on a system whose condition number is unremarkable

while on uniformly random systems it stays within a small multiple of the roundoff

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 92 of 198 generators — 77 print a residual and 15 are exempt with a published reason; 106 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

A bound that is proved

Every error statement on this site so far is a measurement of one run. Interval arithmetic makes a different kind of claim — the answer lies in this set, for this input, with no probability attached — and its failure mode is that it returns nothing at all. On a Hilbert system it proves a bound 23 times the error it bounds, and one size later it refuses.

Elimination, and the swap

A rule that is correct and unusable

Cramer's rule gives every component of the solution in closed form, in terms of determinants, and it is a theorem. On two-by-two systems whose rows are nearly parallel it returns an answer with a backward error of 458 units of roundoff where elimination returns 1.3 — on a matrix whose condition number is 32,000 and which elimination solved perfectly.

Elimination, and the swap

Elimination is a sequence of choices

Gaussian elimination is taught as a procedure with no decisions in it. There is one decision at every step — which row to use — and every stability property the algorithm has comes from making it well.

The arithmetic underneath

Proving the answer is in the box

Every other method here computes a number and estimates how wrong it is. This one returns a verdict: there is exactly one solution in this box, or there is none, or — the honest third outcome — nothing can be said. Two of the three are proofs about infinitely many points from finitely many operations.

Elimination, and the swap

The bound that is never attained

Partial pivoting's stability guarantee permits the entries to double at every step — a factor of 5.5·10¹¹ at n = 40. The measured growth on random matrices of that size is about three. The gap is eleven orders of magnitude, and the guarantee is still worth having.

Two errors, and whose fault they are

The exact answer to a nearby problem

A good algorithm does not give an approximate answer to your problem. It gives the exact answer to a problem very close to yours — and once that is the definition, a wrong result has two possible authors and they can be measured apart.

Iterating, instead of factorising

The formula that was already optimal

Ask for the interpolation that minimises the energy of its own columns and the answer is the classical AMG formula — to zero at every row of the one-dimensional Laplacian, and to four digits in two dimensions. On the operator rotated to 45° the two part company, and the gap between them is a diagnostic that needs no reference solution.

Elimination, and the swap

The inverse that is never formed

x = A⁻¹b is how the solution of a linear system is written and it is not how it is computed. The usual reason given is cost — three times the arithmetic. The real reason is that one of the two routes is backward stable and the other is not, and at κ = 10¹⁴ they differ by twelve orders of magnitude in the number that says whose fault a wrong answer is.

Elimination, and the swap

The swap that is not optional

Run elimination without a row interchange on a matrix that needs one and nothing announces a failure. There is no division by zero, no warning, and an answer of the right shape. It is simply wrong, and how wrong depends on a number you did not look at.

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