Generator

search-map

One function in the branchbound library, called 8 times across 7 essays. 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 every box a search over [−3, 3]² leaves behind, at a stopping width of 0.05. A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.

search-map is one function in lib/figures/branchbound.js — from a verdict to a search — where the box is cut, and what that costs. 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.

Every box a search over [−3, 3]² leaves behind, at a stopping width of 0.05A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.grey: proved empty · filled: proved to contain exactly one roota covered squareboxes proved empty42boxes proved unique2undecided0operator evaluations87every rectangle carries a proofand the two dots are where the roots are

A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.

minWidth: 0.02

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.

Every box a search over [−3, 3]² leaves behind, at a stopping width of 0.02A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.grey: proved empty · filled: proved to contain exactly one roota covered squareboxes proved empty42boxes proved unique2undecided0operator evaluations87every rectangle carries a proofand the two dots are where the roots are

A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.

minWidth: 0.1

The arguments are the ones An answer that is known 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.

Every box a search over [−3, 3]² leaves behind, at a stopping width of 0.1A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.grey: proved empty · filled: proved to contain exactly one roota covered squareboxes proved empty42boxes proved unique2undecided0operator evaluations87every rectangle carries a proofand the two dots are where the roots are

A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.

minWidth: 0.05

The arguments are the ones Proving the answer is in the box 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.

Every box a search over [−3, 3]² leaves behind, at a stopping width of 0.05A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.grey: proved empty · filled: proved to contain exactly one roota covered squareboxes proved empty42boxes proved unique2undecided0operator evaluations87every rectangle carries a proofand the two dots are where the roots are

A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.

minWidth: 0.2

The arguments are the ones The exact answer to a nearby problem 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.

Every box a search over [−3, 3]² leaves behind, at a stopping width of 0.2A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.grey: proved empty · filled: proved to contain exactly one roota covered squareboxes proved empty42boxes proved unique2undecided0operator evaluations87every rectangle carries a proofand the two dots are where the roots are

A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.

minWidth: 0.3

The arguments are the ones The numbers below the smallest one 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.

Every box a search over [−3, 3]² leaves behind, at a stopping width of 0.3A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.grey: proved empty · filled: proved to contain exactly one roota covered squareboxes proved empty42boxes proved unique2undecided0operator evaluations87every rectangle carries a proofand the two dots are where the roots are

A square divided into rectangles of three kinds. 42 are proved to contain no root at all; 2 are proved to contain exactly one, and each holds one of the two roots at (±√2, ±√2); 0 are undecided. The whole square is covered, and it took 87 evaluations of the operator.

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 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.

the root at (1.414, 1.414) is inside a verified box — asserted 2 times

a square that contains both roots

a stopping width the picture has room for

a subdivision point inside the box

and inside no box proved empty

LU is for square matrices

the search terminates

with both roots verified

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.

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.

Two errors, and whose fault they are

An answer that is known

Almost every demonstration of numerical error estimates the error by computing the same thing more carefully. The Hilbert matrix does not need that: its inverse is a closed form in integers, so the true answer is available exactly and the error is measured rather than approximated.

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.

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.

The arithmetic underneath

The numbers below the smallest one

Below the smallest normal number the spacing stops halving and stays put, all the way to zero. That is what gradual underflow is, and the thing it buys is the sentence every algorithm assumes without being told — x minus y is zero only when x equals y.

The arithmetic underneath

What a float can hold

The representable numbers are not a fine fuzz spread evenly over the line. They are evenly spaced inside each power-of-two interval and twice as far apart in the next one up, and almost everything else in this subject is a consequence of that one fact.

The arithmetic underneath

Where the box is cut

A branch-and-bound with an interval operator settles a whole square — two roots proved unique, forty-two regions proved empty, nothing left undecided, in 87 evaluations. Move the roots so one lands on the first bisection and it proves nothing at all, at any depth. Cutting at 0.485 instead of 0.5 finds both, in a quarter of the work.

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