Re: numeric Groebner bases et al [Was Re: Numerical accuracy/precision - this is a bug or a feature?]
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg120302] Re: numeric Groebner bases et al [Was Re: Numerical accuracy/precision - this is a bug or a feature?]
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>
- Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 06:12:49 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <201107171003.GAA17256@smc.vnet.net>
On 17 Jul 2011, at 12:03, Daniel Lichtblau wrote: > Brief history; Around 1994 Kiyoshi Shirayanaga wrote about an implementation of such inside Maple. As I'd been working on a new GB implementation for Mathematica 3, and as his article discussed various tactics that amounted to an emulation of significance tracking, I thought I would try to put this into the new release. This reminds me of one just one example of how Richard tries to twist things that others write in a way that is convenient to him (or perhaps he really does not understand things that I assume must to be obvious to him...). I wrote: > As for things like numerical Groebner basis etc, you keep arguing that it probably can be done in some other way (without significance arithmetic) and in a certain, rather trivial, sense you undoubtedly right. But the fact is, as Daniel has pointed out, that, in practice, nobody seems to have done it in another way, and not for want of trying. So again here we have the distinction between "theory" and "practical application" but except that this time the shoe is on the other foot. Note the "rather trivial sense". Richard then "interpreted" it in his inimitable way: > Even you seem to agree > that Mathematica's particular kind of > bigfloat arithmetic is not essential to this. So I don't see your point. My point was obvious: the "rather trivial" way (in the case of software) of avoiding the use of something is by essentially "emulating it". The mathematical analogue of this is this: theorem B is usually deduced from theorem A. However, it is almost always easy to produce a a proof of B "without using A" by including in the proof of B all the essential things in the proof of A that are needed to deduce B. It is rare that one will get away with a claim of having obtained an "independent" proof by this method. A really independent proof is something else altogether. Clearly one can emulate "significance tracking" in fixed precision arithmetic and thus implement Daniel's version of Groebner basis in, for example, Maple. It will almost certainly require clumsier and longer code. The answer to the question: is there a really independent way of achieving the same final effect? is not known to me and I certainly did not imply that it was. And I think Richard should have known "what I mean" perfectly well, but it was not a convenient thing to know for him a that moment. Andrzej Kozlowski
- References:
- numeric Groebner bases et al [Was Re: Numerical accuracy/precision - this is a bug or a feature?]
- From: Daniel Lichtblau <danl@wolfram.com>
- numeric Groebner bases et al [Was Re: Numerical accuracy/precision - this is a bug or a feature?]