AngouriMath
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RelativeResidualTolerance
Field
Summary
How large the residual has to be next to the terms it is the sum of before it
counts as evidence against a root.
counts as evidence against a root.
Remarks
A residual that is merely non-zero is not evidence. A root found numerically is
only as accurate as the search that found it, and the terms of the equation at
such a root cancel to within that accuracy rather than exactly. Judging the
residual on its own size threw away every root of
1/210 - 17x/210 + 101x^2/210 - 247x^3/210 + x^4 , whose four roots come
back as decimals and leave 5.2e-6 against terms of about 1.2e-2, and answered
that quartic with the empty set.
The two cases are far apart, which is what makes a threshold possible at all.
A spurious root is not a near miss: it comes from a rewrite that widened the
domain, so the residual is a whole quantity in its own right -- 2*pi*i for the
logarithm sum, or the difference between -3 and 9 for an exponential. Over the
equations measured, every genuine root sits at 4.5e-4 or below and most at
1e-15, while every spurious one sits between 1.5 and 2. This is a hundredth:
twenty times above the worst genuine root and a hundred and fifty times below
the mildest spurious one.
It is a bound for roots found numerically. An equation and a root that are exact numbers
are held to the working precision instead, in IsEvidenceAgainst(AngouriMath.Entity).
only as accurate as the search that found it, and the terms of the equation at
such a root cancel to within that accuracy rather than exactly. Judging the
residual on its own size threw away every root of
back as decimals and leave 5.2e-6 against terms of about 1.2e-2, and answered
that quartic with the empty set.
The two cases are far apart, which is what makes a threshold possible at all.
A spurious root is not a near miss: it comes from a rewrite that widened the
domain, so the residual is a whole quantity in its own right -- 2*pi*i for the
logarithm sum, or the difference between -3 and 9 for an exponential. Over the
equations measured, every genuine root sits at 4.5e-4 or below and most at
1e-15, while every spurious one sits between 1.5 and 2. This is a hundredth:
twenty times above the worst genuine root and a hundred and fifty times below
the mildest spurious one.
It is a bound for roots found numerically. An equation and a root that are exact numbers
are held to the working precision instead, in IsEvidenceAgainst(AngouriMath.Entity).
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