Generator

smoothing-gain

One function in the aggregation library, called 5 times across 5 essays. Below: what it draws at its defaults, what it draws at every value an essay asks for, the 4 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 same aggregates, with and without the prolongator smoothing (ε = 1). Relative residual against V-cycle on a logarithmic vertical axis. Both hierarchies are built from the identical aggregation of the same matrix. Without the smoothing sweep the convergence factor is 0.8133; with it the factor is 0.3529, reached in 18 cycles. The smoothed hierarchy stores 1.34 times the fine matrix against 1.26.

smoothing-gain is one function in lib/figures/aggregation.js — smoothed aggregation — the sweep that is the method, and the angle that defeats it. 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 same aggregates, with and without the prolongator smoothing (ε = 1)Relative residual against V-cycle on a logarithmic vertical axis. Both hierarchies are built from the identical aggregation of the same matrix. Without the smoothing sweep the convergence factor is 0.8133; with it the factor is 0.3529, reached in 18 cycles. The smoothed hierarchy stores 1.34 times the fine matrix against 1.26.036912151810⁻¹¹10⁻⁹10⁻⁷10⁻⁵10⁻³10⁻¹V-cyclerelative residualpiecewise constantsmoothedone sweep on the columns of Pfactor, unsmoothed0.81factor, smoothed0.35operator complexity, smoothed1.3the same aggregates in bothand one sweep between them

Relative residual against V-cycle on a logarithmic vertical axis. Both hierarchies are built from the identical aggregation of the same matrix. Without the smoothing sweep the convergence factor is 0.8133; with it the factor is 0.3529, reached in 18 cycles. The smoothed hierarchy stores 1.34 times the fine matrix against 1.26.

k: 31

The arguments are the ones A hierarchy with no grid behind it 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 same aggregates, with and without the prolongator smoothing (ε = 1)Relative residual against V-cycle on a logarithmic vertical axis. Both hierarchies are built from the identical aggregation of the same matrix. Without the smoothing sweep the convergence factor is 0.8133; with it the factor is 0.3529, reached in 18 cycles. The smoothed hierarchy stores 1.34 times the fine matrix against 1.26.036912151810⁻¹¹10⁻⁹10⁻⁷10⁻⁵10⁻³10⁻¹V-cyclerelative residualpiecewise constantsmoothedone sweep on the columns of Pfactor, unsmoothed0.81factor, smoothed0.35operator complexity, smoothed1.3the same aggregates in bothand one sweep between them

Relative residual against V-cycle on a logarithmic vertical axis. Both hierarchies are built from the identical aggregation of the same matrix. Without the smoothing sweep the convergence factor is 0.8133; with it the factor is 0.3529, reached in 18 cycles. The smoothed hierarchy stores 1.34 times the fine matrix against 1.26.

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.

4 distinct claims across 2 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 grid the hierarchy has room to coarsen on

an anisotropy the operator is defined at

and costs a denser hierarchy

the smoothing more than halves the convergence factor

Against the rule

It draws a decomposition and prints its residual. It calls saSolve, 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 66 of 131 generators — 51 print a residual and 15 are exempt with a published reason; 65 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.

Iterating, instead of factorising

A hierarchy with no grid behind it

On a graph Laplacian the algebraic V-cycle converges at 0.199 a cycle, its grid complexity is an unremarkable 3.05, and its operator complexity is 17.7 — one level of forty-one unknowns is entirely dense. The number people quote is the one that does not measure the work.

Iterating, instead of factorising

Aggregating what the matrix calls strong

The depth phase measured every method it had on the 45°-rotated anisotropic operator — 0.784, 0.883, 0.844 — and diagnosed the failure as being in the discretisation rather than in the hierarchy. Smoothed aggregation is the standard answer to anisotropy. It returns 0.789.

Iterating, instead of factorising

The coarse grid the matrix chooses

Given a tridiagonal matrix and no information about a grid, the coarsening keeps every other point and derives the weights ½, 1, ½ — the operators the geometric method was handed. Given the anisotropic operator, it discovers semi-coarsening, in the right direction, without a coordinate.

Iterating, instead of factorising

The error smoothing cannot reach

One weighted Jacobi sweep multiplies every mode of the error by a number, and the number is a sine. Half the modes are cut by three or better, and the other half come back at 0.999 — which is not a failure of the method but the fact the whole of multigrid is built on.

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.

The whole library · All essays · What must fail