Re: managing order of magnitude instead of numbers
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg56819] Re: managing order of magnitude instead of numbers
- From: Paul Abbott <paul at physics.uwa.edu.au>
- Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 04:16:31 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: The University of Western Australia
- References: <d57gvv$p8a$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
In article <d57gvv$p8a$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
foice <foice@N0NSPAMMAR&tiscali.it> wrote:
> i need to make calculation without specifing the exact values of my
> parameters, i want only to specify their order of magnitude.
> obviously i need only order of magnitudes as result.
>
> now the problem is that
>
> O(1) - O(1) = O(1)
>
> while
>
> 1-1 = 0
>
> so it's clear i cannot use numbers to make this "order of magintude
> calculation"
One comment here: Mathematica does know something about objects of this
type. For example, enter
O[x] - O[x]
and see what happens.
Generally, I think you can use Series to do such calculations most
efficiently.
> at the present stage i let mathematica do the calculation in a fully
> simbolic way and then, by hand calculation, i get my result by
> susbstitution of the order of magnitudes in place of the symobls used.
>
> making a very simple example:
>
> i ask to mathematica to do
>
> a - b
>
> and then i substitute
>
> a=O(1)
>
> b=O(0.002)
>
> and calculate
>
> a - b = O(1)
>
> in this way i'm making operation between magnitues not values, but i
> have to do it on my own, while doing calculation with mathematica will
> be much better.
>
> is there any way to make calculation betwwen order of magnitues
> instead of between numbers?
Perhaps you could use Interval arithmetic? For example, defining
o[x_] := Interval[x {0.9,1.1}]
to be an order of magnitude interval, then
o[1] - o[0.002]
returns an interval. We can use the following to check the magnitude:
oCheck[int_,n_] := IntervalIntersection[int, o[n]] =!= Interval[]
For example,
oCheck[o[1] - o[0.002], 1]
yields True, whereas
oCheck[o[1] - o[0.002],0.1]
and
oCheck[o[1] - o[0.002], 10]
do not.
Cheers,
Paul
--
Paul Abbott Phone: +61 8 6488 2734
School of Physics, M013 Fax: +61 8 6488 1014
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