qep-count
At its defaults it draws where the missing eigenvalues went: an 6 × 6 quadratic with 1 of its masses removed. A chain of 6 masses with the first 1 of them set to zero, so M is singular of rank 5. det Q(λ) is a polynomial of degree at most 12; interpolated exactly in BigInt rationals at 13 nodes it has degree 11, so 1 of the 12 eigenvalues are at infinity — the same object a descriptor pencil has, arriving here because a degree of freedom with no inertia is an algebraic constraint. The float route counts the singular values of M judged to be zero and reaches 1, backed by a gap of ∞ between consecutive singular values. One integer, two routes, and only the second of them is a decision.
qep-count is one function in lib/figures/quadratic.js —
a matrix that depends on its own eigenvalue — 2n answers for n rows, and a count that is a degree. 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.
A chain of 6 masses with the first 1 of them set to zero, so M is singular of rank 5. det Q(λ) is a polynomial of degree at most 12; interpolated exactly in BigInt rationals at 13 nodes it has degree 11, so 1 of the 12 eigenvalues are at infinity — the same object a descriptor pencil has, arriving here because a degree of freedom with no inertia is an algebraic constraint. The float route counts the singular values of M judged to be zero and reaches 1, backed by a gap of ∞ between consecutive singular values. One integer, two routes, and only the second of them is a decision.
k: 1
The arguments are the ones A matrix that depends on its own eigenvalue 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.
A chain of 6 masses with the first 1 of them set to zero, so M is singular of rank 5. det Q(λ) is a polynomial of degree at most 12; interpolated exactly in BigInt rationals at 13 nodes it has degree 11, so 1 of the 12 eigenvalues are at infinity — the same object a descriptor pencil has, arriving here because a degree of freedom with no inertia is an algebraic constraint. The float route counts the singular values of M judged to be zero and reaches 1, backed by a gap of ∞ between consecutive singular values. One integer, two routes, and only the second of them is a decision.
k: 3
The arguments are the ones A matrix that depends on its own eigenvalue 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.
A chain of 6 masses with the first 3 of them set to zero, so M is singular of rank 3. det Q(λ) is a polynomial of degree at most 12; interpolated exactly in BigInt rationals at 13 nodes it has degree 9, so 3 of the 12 eigenvalues are at infinity — the same object a descriptor pencil has, arriving here because a degree of freedom with no inertia is an algebraic constraint. The float route counts the singular values of M judged to be zero and reaches 3, backed by a gap of −∞ between consecutive singular values. One integer, two routes, and only the second of them is a decision.
k: 4
The arguments are the ones A matrix that depends on its own eigenvalue 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.
A chain of 6 masses with the first 4 of them set to zero, so M is singular of rank 2. det Q(λ) is a polynomial of degree at most 12; interpolated exactly in BigInt rationals at 13 nodes it has degree 8, so 4 of the 12 eigenvalues are at infinity — the same object a descriptor pencil has, arriving here because a degree of freedom with no inertia is an algebraic constraint. The float route counts the singular values of M judged to be zero and reaches 4, backed by a gap of −∞ between consecutive singular values. One integer, two routes, and only the second of them is a decision.
k: 2
The arguments are the ones A matrix that depends on its own eigenvalue 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.
A chain of 6 masses with the first 2 of them set to zero, so M is singular of rank 4. det Q(λ) is a polynomial of degree at most 12; interpolated exactly in BigInt rationals at 13 nodes it has degree 10, so 2 of the 12 eigenvalues are at infinity — the same object a descriptor pencil has, arriving here because a degree of freedom with no inertia is an algebraic constraint. The float route counts the singular values of M judged to be zero and reaches 2, backed by a gap of −∞ between consecutive singular values. One integer, two routes, and only the second of them is a decision.
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.
8 distinct claims across 5 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 chain long enough to have a spectrum and short enough to draw
a positive mass
a size the exact interpolation can afford
an integer entry, which is what makes the exact route exact
and the rank decision agrees
damping that removes energy rather than adding it
some masses missing and some left
the degree is short by the number of missing masses
Against the rule
It draws a decomposition and prints its residual. It calls
charPolyQuadExact,
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 173
of 325 generators —
158 print a residual and
15 are exempt with a published reason;
152 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.
A matrix that depends on its own eigenvalue
A damped structure does not produce Ax = λx. It produces (λ²M + λC + K)x = 0, where the matrix whose null vector is wanted is a function of the number being solved for — so there is nothing to factorise, an n × n problem has 2n answers, and the eigenvectors cannot be a basis.
The eigenvalue problem that is not linearA problem with infinitely many eigenvalues
Let the matrix depend on λ through something that is not a polynomial and three things stop being true at once. There is no linearisation, there is no characteristic polynomial, and "compute the spectrum" is not a request that can be granted — the only finite question is how many eigenvalues are inside this circle.
Randomised, and the guarantee that changes kindCounting what is inside a circle
A trace of a matrix nobody wants to form, integrated around a contour, gives an integer — how many eigenvalues are inside. It converges exponentially, it is estimated with random probes, and the probe block is a ceiling that the answer does not mention.
The eigenvalue problem that is not linearSix routes to one spectrum
Three linearisations of one quadratic, each reduced to a standard eigenvalue problem two ways. All six have exactly the same eigenvalues in exact arithmetic. On a well-scaled problem they differ by noise; on a badly scaled one by a factor of forty; and two of the six are the same matrix.
Where the flop count stopped predicting the timeThe last digit is the cheapest
Every cost curve on this site has the same shape: the first digits are cheap and the last ones are not. One method inverts it. Doubling the work buys twice as many digits as the previous doubling did, so the price of a digit halves every time it is paid.
Two errors, and whose fault they areThe roots are not the coefficients
A polynomial whose roots are the integers one to twenty, expanded exactly, handed to the routine every library uses. The computed roots are wrong in the third digit, the computation is backward stable for the matrix it factorised, and above degree eighteen the coefficients are not double-precision numbers at all.
The arithmetic underneathThe units that overflow before the answer does
A change of variable that is exact in the algebra requires γ² times a matrix to be a number the format can hold. In binary64 that is a bound nobody meets by accident. In binary32 it arrives at 10¹⁹ and in fp16 at 256, and past it there is no answer rather than a poor one.