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Condition number

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Function's sensitivity to argument change

In numerical analysis, the condition number of a function measures how much the output value of the function can change for a small change in the input argument. This is used to measure how sensitive a function is to changes or errors in the input, and how much error in the output results from an error in the input. Very frequently, one is solving the inverse problem: given

{\displaystyle f(x)=y,}

one is solving for x, and thus the condition number of the (local) inverse must be used.[1][2]

The condition number is derived from the theory of propagation of uncertainty, and is formally defined as the value of the asymptotic worst-case relative change in output for a relative change in input. The "function" is the solution of a problem and the "arguments" are the data in the problem. The condition number is frequently applied to questions in linear algebra, in which case the derivative is straightforward but the error could be in many different directions, and is thus computed from the geometry of the matrix. More generally, condition numbers can be defined for non-linear functions in several variables.

A problem with a low condition number is said to be well-conditioned , while a problem with a high condition number is said to be ill-conditioned . In non-mathematical terms, an ill-conditioned problem is one where, for a small change in the inputs (the independent variables) there is a large change in the answer or dependent variable. This means that the correct solution/answer to the equation becomes hard to find. The condition number is a property of the problem. Paired with the problem are any number of algorithms that can be used to solve the problem, that is, to calculate the solution. Some algorithms have a property called backward stability; in general, a backward stable algorithm can be expected to accurately solve well-conditioned problems. Numerical analysis textbooks give formulas for the condition numbers of problems and identify known backward stable algorithms.

As a rule of thumb, if the condition number

10

{\displaystyle \kappa (A)=10^{k}}

, then up to

{\displaystyle k}

digits of accuracy may be lost on top of what would be lost to the numerical method due to loss of precision from arithmetic methods.[3] However, the condition number does not give the exact value of the maximum inaccuracy that may occur in the algorithm. It generally just bounds it with an estimate (whose computed value depends on the choice of the norm to measure the inaccuracy).

Matrices<br>[edit]

For example, the condition number associated with the linear equation<br>Ax = b gives a bound on how inaccurate the solution x will be after approximation. Note that this is before the effects of round-off error are taken into account; conditioning is a property of the matrix, not the algorithm or floating-point accuracy of the computer used to solve the corresponding system. In particular, one should think of the condition number as being (very roughly) the rate at which the solution x will change with respect to a change in b. Thus, if the condition number is large, even a small error in b may cause a large error in x. On the other hand, if the condition number is small, then the error in x will not be much bigger than the error in b.

The condition number is defined more precisely to be the maximum ratio of the relative error in x to the relative error in b.

Let e be the error in b. Assuming that A is a nonsingular matrix, the error in the solution A−1b is A−1e. The ratio of the relative error in the solution to the relative error in b is

{\displaystyle {\frac {\left\|A^{-1}e\right\|}{\left\|A^{-1}b\right\|}}/{\frac {\|e\|}{\|b\|}}={\frac {\left\|A^{-1}e\right\|}{\|e\|}}{\frac {\|b\|}{\left\|A^{-1}b\right\|}}.}

The maximum value (for nonzero b and e) is then seen to be the product of the two operator norms as follows:

max

max

max

max

max

{\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\max _{e,b\neq 0}\left\{{\frac {\left\|A^{-1}e\right\|}{\|e\|}}{\frac {\|b\|}{\left\|A^{-1}b\right\|}}\right\}&=\max _{e\neq 0}\left\{{\frac {\left\|A^{-1}e\right\|}{\|e\|}}\right\}\,\max _{b\neq 0}\left\{{\frac {\|b\|}{\left\|A^{-1}b\right\|}}\right\}\\&=\max _{e\neq 0}\left\{{\frac {\left\|A^{-1}e\right\|}{\|e\|}}\right\}\,\max _{x\neq 0}\left\{{\frac {\|Ax\|}{\|x\|}}\right\}\\&=\left\|A^{-1}\right\|\,\|A\|.\end{aligned}}}

The same definition is used for any consistent norm, i.e. one that satisfies

1.

{\displaystyle \kappa (A)=\left\|A^{-1}\right\|\,\left\|A\right\|\geq \left\|A^{-1}A\right\|=1.}

When the condition number is exactly one (which can only happen...