# Morse Code, Binary Trees and Graphs4

Posted by Cleve Moler,

A binary tree is an elegant way to represent and process Morse code. The new MATLAB graph object provides an elegant way to manipulate binary trees. A new app, morse_tree, based on this approach, is now available in version 2.40 of Cleve's Laboratory.... read more >>

# Patience Chinese Rings Puzzle

Posted by Cleve Moler,

MIT's Professor Daniel Frey recently introduced me to an ancient mechanical puzzle known as "Chinese Rings", "Patience", or "Baguenaudier." I have modified Daniel's simulator to produce a new app. The state space of the puzzle forms a hypercube.... read more >>

# Ulps Plots Reveal Math Function Accuracy2

Posted by Cleve Moler,

"ULP" stands for "unit in the last place." An ulps plot samples a fundamental math function such as $\sin{x}$, or a more esoteric function like a Bessel function. The samples are compared with more accurate values obtained from a higher precision computation. A plot of the accuracy, measured in ulps, reveals valuable information about the underlying algorithms.... read more >>

# Fitting and Extrapolating US Census Data

Posted by Cleve Moler,

A headline in the New York Times at the end of 2016 said "Growth of U.S. Population Is at Slowest Pace Since 1937". This prompted me to revisit an old chestnut about fitting and extrapolating census data. In the process I have added a couple of nonlinear fits, namely the logistic curve and the double exponential Gompertz model.... read more >>

# My First Matrix, RGB, YIQ, and Color Cubes2

Posted by Cleve Moler,

When I was in high school in the 1950's, I didn't know anything about matrices. But I nearly encountered one when I wrote a paper for my physics class about the color scheme that allowed new color TV broadcasts to be compatible with existing black-and-white TV receivers.... read more >>

# Householder Reflections and the QR Decomposition1

Posted by Cleve Moler,

The QR decomposition is often the first step in algorithms for solving many different matrix problems, including linear systems, eigenvalues, and singular values. Householder reflections are the preferred tool for computing the QR decomposition.... read more >>

# The Pentium Papers — My First MATLAB Central Contribution

Posted by Cleve Moler,

MATLAB Central is celebrating its 15th birthday this fall. In honor of the occasion, MathWorks bloggers are reminiscing about their first involvement with the Web site. My first contribution to the File Exchange was not MATLAB software, but rather a collection of documents that I called the Pentium Papers. I saved this material in November and December of 1994 when I was deeply involved in the Intel Pentium Floating Point Division Affair…. read more >>

# Jim Sanderson, Two Careers: Computational Scientist and Conservationist3

Posted by Cleve Moler,

Jim Sanderson has had a fascinating professional life. He was my PhD student in math at the University of New Mexico in the 1970s. He spent almost 20 years as a computational scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, working on the lab’s supercomputers. He then developed an interest in ecology, went back to school, and is now the world’s leading authority on the preservation of small wild cats around the world…. read more >>