Subject: Help with very very slow determinant calcuation
From: Barton Willis
Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2011 05:18:35 -0500
The cost for the function determinant is comparable to the cost of a LU factorization. So, no
computing the determinant by means of the LU factorization is unlikely to help. Nghia Ho already
tried setting ratmx to true and newdet. And that's about all that might speed up the
calculation.
For symbolic matrices, the standard big oh time estimates are misleading. The time for addition,
for example, isn't constant, but the time depends on the complexity of the expressions.
It's likely that if Maxima was able to find the determinant of this 10x10 symbolic matrix, the
result would be so huge that it wouldn't be useful. I would suggest a different approach.
--Barton
-----maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu wrote: -----
Can you elaborate more on how factorizing the matrix can help? My background isn't in mathematics, I only did basic engineering level maths.