Quantity[] (Units) slows things! Solutions?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg131510] Quantity[] (Units) slows things! Solutions?
- From: Frank Iannarilli <frankeye at cox.net>
- Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 07:05:59 -0400 (EDT)
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- Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@wolfram.com
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Hi,
This is for Mathematica9 which introduced units-handling via the Quantity[] function and its friends. It's a nice provision, but can slow things down substantially for production work, e.g. below shows a factor of 6500 slowdown!
For example:
lwc[dBZ_, sigma_, n_Quantity] := (1/6) Exp[-9 sigma^2/2] Pi
Quantity[1.,"Grams"/("Centimeters"^3)]
Sqrt[n (10^(dBZ/10))
Quantity[1., ("Millimeters")^6/("Meters"^3)]]
Timing[Table[lwc[dbz, 0.35,
Quantity[200., 1/("Centimeters"^3)]],
{dbz, -100., -10., 0.1}]]
===>>65 Seconds!
whereas the unitless equivalent:
lwcn[dBZ_, sigma_, n_] := (1/6) Exp[-9 sigma^2/2] Pi
1.0 Sqrt[n (10^(dBZ/10)) ]
Timing[Table[lwcn[dbz, 0.35, 200.], {dbz, -100., -10., 0.1}]]
===>>0.01 Seconds!
Can anyone suggest any tricks other than removing the units-handling?