Services & ResourcesWolfram ForumsMathGroup Archive

[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]

Re: Computation speeds: numerical vs symbolic

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg55925] Re: Computation speeds: numerical vs symbolic
• From: Jon Harrop <usenet at jdh30.plus.com>
• Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 06:54:59 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <d2tfah$ql7$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

AES wrote:
> So, I'm just curious, how can a calculate and plot command like this
> be so stunningly fast?  and the trivially simple symbolic integration
> above be so slow?

You could think of it as: the numerical work uses finite precision but the
symbolic work uses infinite precision.

Put another way, how high does the precision of the numerical routine need
to be such that symbolic routine is faster?

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
http://www.ffconsultancy.com

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Re: Computation speeds: numerical vs symbolic
    • From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl>