Generator

ghost-ladder

One function in the lanczos library, called 3 times across 1 essay. Below: what it draws at its defaults, what it draws at every value an essay asks for, the 9 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 copies of each eigenvalue after 80 steps on a 40×40 matrix with a simple spectrum. A bar per eigenvalue that came back more than once, showing how many times. The matrix has 40 distinct eigenvalues by construction; the run returned 25 extra copies of 13 of them, the most-copied arriving 5 times. Every copy is accurate to 1.9·10⁻⁸ relative, which is why nothing but the true spectrum could detect them.

ghost-ladder is one function in lib/figures/lanczos.js — lanczos — three terms, lost orthogonality, and an eigenvalue that arrives twice. 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.

Copies of each eigenvalue after 80 steps on a 40×40 matrix with a simple spectrumA bar per eigenvalue that came back more than once, showing how many times. The matrix has 40 distinct eigenvalues by construction; the run returned 25 extra copies of 13 of them, the most-copied arriving 5 times. Every copy is accurate to 1.9·10⁻⁸ relative, which is why nothing but the true spectrum could detect them.λ = 105 timesλ = 9.55 timesλ = 95 timesλ = 8.55 timesλ = 2.952 timesλ = 2.92 timeseigenvalues that arrived more than once — the matrix has 40 distinct onesa spectrum with the wrong multiplicitiesextra copies, no reorthogonalisation25extra copies, full reorthogonalisation0worst relative error among the copies1.9·10⁻⁸steps taken of 80 asked for, full40no arithmetic error was madeevery one of these is right to eight digits

A bar per eigenvalue that came back more than once, showing how many times. The matrix has 40 distinct eigenvalues by construction; the run returned 25 extra copies of 13 of them, the most-copied arriving 5 times. Every copy is accurate to 1.9·10⁻⁸ relative, which is why nothing but the true spectrum could detect them.

steps: 80

The arguments are the ones An eigenvalue that arrives twice 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.

Copies of each eigenvalue after 80 steps on a 40×40 matrix with a simple spectrumA bar per eigenvalue that came back more than once, showing how many times. The matrix has 40 distinct eigenvalues by construction; the run returned 25 extra copies of 13 of them, the most-copied arriving 5 times. Every copy is accurate to 1.9·10⁻⁸ relative, which is why nothing but the true spectrum could detect them.λ = 105 timesλ = 9.55 timesλ = 95 timesλ = 8.55 timesλ = 2.952 timesλ = 2.92 timeseigenvalues that arrived more than once — the matrix has 40 distinct onesa spectrum with the wrong multiplicitiesextra copies, no reorthogonalisation25extra copies, full reorthogonalisation0worst relative error among the copies1.9·10⁻⁸steps taken of 80 asked for, full40no arithmetic error was madeevery one of these is right to eight digits

A bar per eigenvalue that came back more than once, showing how many times. The matrix has 40 distinct eigenvalues by construction; the run returned 25 extra copies of 13 of them, the most-copied arriving 5 times. Every copy is accurate to 1.9·10⁻⁸ relative, which is why nothing but the true spectrum could detect them.

steps: 120

The arguments are the ones An eigenvalue that arrives twice 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.

Copies of each eigenvalue after 120 steps on a 40×40 matrix with a simple spectrumA bar per eigenvalue that came back more than once, showing how many times. The matrix has 40 distinct eigenvalues by construction; the run returned 71 extra copies of 40 of them, the most-copied arriving 8 times. Every copy is accurate to 2.3·10⁻⁸ relative, which is why nothing but the true spectrum could detect them.λ = 108 timesλ = 9.58 timesλ = 97 timesλ = 8.57 timesλ = 2.953 timesλ = 2.93 timeseigenvalues that arrived more than once — the matrix has 40 distinct onesa spectrum with the wrong multiplicitiesextra copies, no reorthogonalisation71extra copies, full reorthogonalisation0worst relative error among the copies2.3·10⁻⁸steps taken of 120 asked for, full40no arithmetic error was madeevery one of these is right to eight digits

A bar per eigenvalue that came back more than once, showing how many times. The matrix has 40 distinct eigenvalues by construction; the run returned 71 extra copies of 40 of them, the most-copied arriving 8 times. Every copy is accurate to 2.3·10⁻⁸ relative, which is why nothing but the true spectrum could detect them.

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.

9 distinct claims across 3 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 run past the dimension of the Krylov space

and every copy is an accurate eigenvalue

and reorthogonalising removes them

and the plain recurrence does not notice

full reorthogonalisation stops when the space is exhausted

Jacobi needs a symmetric matrix

matmul shapes agree

the plain run returns duplicates

there is something to draw

Against the rule

It draws a decomposition and prints its residual. It calls lanczos, and every figure above carries the badge — which residualcheck verifies by looking for it in the emitted SVG rather than by finding the call that builds one. A badge that is constructed and then left out of the body is the failure that check exists for.

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 whole library · All essays · What must fail