Timing[ ]
- To: mathgroup at yoda.physics.unc.edu
- Subject: Timing[ ]
- From: keiper
- Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 08:24:15 CDT
> Timing[10000!] > on my Mac IIci and got about 124 sec which seemed in > good agreement with the other reported times for this > configuration. Running it a second time however gave a > time of about 1.67 sec. Yes, many standard calculations are cached so that they do not have to be calculated each time. A sparse table of factorials is saved, Bernoulli numbers are saved, numerical approximations to the various mathematical constants (Pi, E, EulerGamma, etc) are saved, weights and abscissae for Gauss-Kronrod quadrature are saved, as well as several other things that don't immediately spring to mind. Any calculation involving anything that gets cached will generally be faster the second time around. For the most part, a third attempt will take about as long as the second attempt, but subtlties can arise even here. Jerry B. Keiper keiper at wri.com