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Re: Eigenvalues



Raya Khanin wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have a problem of calculating eigenvalues  for a simple 4X4 matrix. I
> am working on Sun workstation, and it takes minutes and minutes for
> Mathematica to  perform Eigenvalues[] operation for a matrix like this
> 
> Clear[a, b, c, d, e, d, f, g];
> testmatrix = {{a, b, c, d}, {b, c, d, e}, {c, d, e, f}, {d, e, f, g}};
> Eigenvalues[testmatrix];
> 

I get a huge result quite quickly. To improve on the size, try

In[72]:= testmatrix = {{a, b, c, d}, {b, c, d, e},
	{c, d, e, f}, {d, e, f, g}};

In[73]:= Timing[ev = Eigenvalues[testmatrix];] Out[73]= {0.83 Second,
Null}

In[74]:= LeafCount[ev]
Out[74]= 1449


> I will need to work with much larger (symbolic) matrices with not that
> simple entries. Has anyone had an experience of working with symbolic
> matrices? Would it be better doing this in MatLab?

You may well need to do numeric rather than symbolic computations. You
will generate enormous results, assuming your computation does not hang
or run you out of memory. These results will not likely be of much use.
If you plug in numeric values for your parameters then quite possibly
you will not be able to get meaningful numeric results due to
accumulation of round-off error.


> Any suggestions will be appreciated!
> 
> thanks a lot.
> 
> Raya Khanin


Daniel Lichtblau
Wolfram Research



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