Re: [math-fun] ENIAC and maple : a simple test

27 Jul 2007


      From: "Alec Mihailovs" <alec@mihailovs.com>
...
On this particular computer, with Windows Vista and ActiveState Python 
2.5.1.1, AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+,
...
...
...
from time import clock
def ti(n):
...         t=clock()
...         som=0
...         for i in xrange(1,n):
...             som=som+1.0/i
...             if i%100000==0:
...                print som,
...         return clock()-t
...
produced the following results (skipping the printed values)
...
...
...
ti(100)
0.00011667999999787071
...
...
...
ti(10000000)
4.3266990400000012
...
...
...
ti(100000000)
42.826358080000006
So, 100000 loop operations were done in about 0.04 seconds each. That's 25 
times faster than ENIAC (actually, more than that, because a loop 
operation is not just an addition) and I can't tell how much it is faster 
than Maple because I don't have Maple installed. Anyway, it is not that 
bad.
Just out of curiosity, after I installed Ubuntu 7.04 on that computer, with 
500 GB hard drive - enough to split between 2 OS, and with 2 GB of RAM (if 
that makes a difference), I got the following results with Python 2.5 that 
comes with Ubuntu (again skipping the printed values),
...
...
...
ti(100)
0
...
...
...
ti(10000000)
4.2800000000000002
...
...
...
ti(100000000)
39.079999999999998
That's generally the same. Amazing thing is that Linux seems to slightly 
outperform Windows. I guess that's because I used ActiveState Python version 
in Windows. Later, when I install the standard Python on Windows, I'll check 
the results there as well.

Alec