# Lecture 17: Problems and Conditioning¶

In this lecture we introduce the notion of a problem. Before that, we mention how Bool's can be used to do logic.

## Bool¶

A Bool is a type that represents either true or false.

In [30]:
x=5

b=  x==5
println(b)
println(typeof(b))

true
Bool


While a Bool has only two possible values, therefore plays the same role as a single bit, it requires 8 bits to store as every memory address stores 8 bits:

In [32]:
bits(b)

Out[32]:
"00000001"

Logical and is done with && while logical or is done with ||:

In [34]:
println(x==5 && x==6)   # && means and
x==5 || x==6   # || means or

false

Out[34]:
true
In [10]:
true && true
true && false
false && false

Out[10]:
false

We can do boolean logic using for loops. The following checks if any entry of x is 5, which is true:

In [35]:
x=collect(1:10)

# check if any entry of x is 5
b = false
for k=1:10
b = b || x[k]==5
end

b

Out[35]:
true

While this checks if any entry of x is 12, which is false:

In [36]:
b = false
for k=1:10
b = b || x[k]==12
end

b

Out[36]:
false

## Problems¶

A normed vector space is a vector space, like $\mathbb R^n$, which has a norm attached, such as the 2-norm.

A problem is a function from one normed space $X$ to another $Y$:

$$f:X \rightarrow Y$$

The norm attached to $X$ describes the error we expect in the input, while the norm attached to $Y$ describes the error we are trying to measure in the output.

### Examples¶

We have some simple examples:

Example 1: For a given matrix $A \in \mathbb R^{n \times m}$, define the problem of matrix-vector multiplication $f : \mathbb R^m \rightarrow \mathbb R^n$, with the 2-norms attached:

$$f(\mathbf x) = A \mathbf x$$

This problem encodes the sensitivity of matrix multiplication to perturbations in the vector.

Example 2: For a given vector $\mathbf x \in \mathbb R^{m}$, define the problem of matrix-vector multiplication $f : \mathbb R^{n \times m} \rightarrow \mathbb R^n$, with the 2-norms attached:

$$f(A) = A \mathbf x$$

This problem encodes the sensitivity of matrix multiplication to perturbations in the matrix.

Example 3: For a given matrix $A \in \mathbb R^{n \times m}$, define the problem of solving a linear system $f : \mathbb R^m \rightarrow \mathbb R^n$, with the 2-norms attached:

$$f(\mathbf x) = A^{-1} \mathbf x$$

This problem encodes the sensitivity of matrix inversion to perturbations in the vector.

Example 4: Define the problem of matrix-vector multiplication $f : \mathbb R^{n \times m} \times \mathbb R^{m} \rightarrow \mathbb R^n$:

$$f(A,\mathbf x) = A \mathbf x$$

We can attach the 2-norm to the output. For the input, we attach the norm

$$\|(A,\mathbf x)\| = \max\{\|A\|_2,\|\mathbf x\|_2\}$$

This problem encodes the sensitivity of matrix multiplication to perturbations in both the matrix and vector.

Example 5: Define the problem of squaring a number $f : \mathbb R \rightarrow \mathbb R$, with the absolute value as the norm:

$$f(x)=x^2$$

# Relative vs Absolute error¶

We can measure the error using either absolute or relative error. The absolute error for the data $x$ perturbed by $\Delta x$ is

$$\|f(x+\Delta x) - f(x)\|$$

But in practice, we usually care more about relative error:

$$\|f(x+\Delta x) - f(x)\| \over \|f(x)\|$$

For example, consider the problem of calculating the exponential

$$f(x) = e^x$$

with the absolute value attached.

When x is small, the absolute error is fairly small:

In [43]:
x=3
Δx=0.000001
abs(exp(x)-exp(x+Δx))

Out[43]:
2.008554696786291e-5

But when x is large, the absolute error is very large:

In [45]:
x=25
Δx=0.000001
abs(exp(x)-exp(x+Δx))

Out[45]:
72004.9354095459

But the actual digits are accurate:

In [46]:
exp(x),exp(x+Δx)

Out[46]:
(7.200489933738588e10,7.200497134232129e10)

Thus it is more reliable to look at relative error, which remains small even when x is large:

In [49]:
x=3
Δx=0.000001
abs(exp(x)-exp(x+Δx))/abs(exp(x))

Out[49]:
1.000000500094933e-6
In [50]:
x=25
Δx=0.000001
abs(exp(x)-exp(x+Δx))/abs(exp(x))

Out[50]:
1.0000005009681335e-6

## Absolute condition number¶

The absolute condition number of a problem is a measure of how much the absolute error in the input is magnified to cause absolute error in the output. The mathematical definition of the absolute condition number is

$$\hat \kappa_f(\mathbf x, \epsilon) \triangleq \sup_{\|\Delta \mathbf x\|_X \leq \epsilon} {\|f(\mathbf x + \Delta \mathbf x) - f(\mathbf x)\|_Y \over \|\Delta \mathbf x\|_X}$$

This gives us a bound on absolute errors: if $\|\Delta \mathbf x\|_X \leq \epsilon$ we have

$$\|f(\mathbf x + \Delta \mathbf x) - f(\mathbf x)\|_Y \leq \hat \kappa_f(\mathbf x, \epsilon) \|\Delta\mathbf x\|_X$$

Example 1

For the problem $f(\mathbf x) = A \mathbf x$, the absolute condition number is:

$$\hat \kappa_f(\mathbf x,\epsilon) = \sup_{\|\Delta \mathbf x\|_X \leq \epsilon} {\|A(\mathbf x + \Delta \mathbf x) - A\mathbf x\|_Y \over \|\Delta \mathbf x\|_X}=\sup_{\|\Delta \mathbf x\|_X \leq \epsilon} {\|A(\Delta \mathbf x)\|_Y \over \|\Delta \mathbf x\|_X} = \sup_{\|\mathbf v\| = 1} {\|A\mathbf v\|_Y \over \|\Delta \mathbf v\|_X} = \|A\|_{X \rightarrow Y}$$
In [ ]: