Lesson plan
EISPACK
EISPACK is a software library for numerical computation of eigenvalues and eigenvectors of matrices, written in FORTRAN. It contains subroutines for calculating the eigenvalues of nine classes of matrices: complex general, complex Hermitian, real general, real symmetric, real symmetric banded, real symmetric tridiagonal, special real tridiagonal, generalized real, and generalized real symmetric matrices. In addition, it includes subroutines to perform a singular value decomposition. Originally written around 1972–1973, EISPACK, like LINPACK and MINPACK, originated from Argonne National Laboratory, has always been free, and aims to be portable, robust and reliable. The library drew heavily on algorithms developed by James Wilkinson, which were originally implemented in ALGOL. Brian Smith led a team at Argonne developing EISPACK, initially by translating these algorithms into FORTRAN. Jack Dongarra joined the team as an undergraduate intern at Argonne, and later went on to create LAPACK, which has largely superseded EISPACK and LINPACK.
Article summary
EISPACK is a software library for numerical computation of eigenvalues and eigenvectors of matrices, written in FORTRAN. It contains subroutines for calculating the eigenvalues of nine classes of matrices: complex general, complex Hermitian, real general, real symmetric, real symmetric banded, real symmetric tridiagonal, special real tridiagonal, generalized real, and generalized real symmetric matrices. In addition, it includes subroutines to perform a singular value decomposition. Originally written around 1972–1973, EISPACK, like LINPACK and MINPACK, originated from Argonne National Laboratory, has always been free, and aims to be portable, robust and reliable. The library drew heavily on algorithms developed by James Wilkinson, which were originally implemented in ALGOL. Brian Smith led a team at Argonne developing EISPACK, initially by translating these algorithms into FORTRAN. Jack Dongarra joined the team as an undergraduate intern at Argonne, and later went on to create LAPACK, which has largely superseded EISPACK and LINPACK.
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.