stirlerrM: Stirling Formula Approximation Error

Description Usage Arguments Details Value Note Author(s) References See Also Examples

View source: R/dpq-mpfrized.R

Description

Compute the log() of the error of Stirling's formula for n!. Used in certain accurate approximations of (negative) binomial and Poisson probabilities.

stirlerrM() currently simply uses the direct mathematical formula, based on lgamma(), adapted for use with mpfr-numbers.

Usage

1
2
stirlerrM(n, minPrec = 128L)
stirlerrSer(n, k)

Arguments

n

numeric or “numeric-alike” vector, typically “large” positive integer or half integer valued, here typically an "mpfr"-number vector.

k

integer scalar, now in 1:11.

minPrec

minimal precision (in bits) to be used when coercing number-alikes, say, biginteger (bigz) to "mpfr".

Details

Stirling's approximation to n! has been

n! ~= (n/e)^n * sqrt(2*pi*n)

, where by definition the error is the difference of the left and right hand side of this formula, in \log-scale,

delta(n) = logΓ(n + 1) - n* log(n) + n - log(2*pi*n)/2.

See the vignette log1pmx, bd0, stirlerr, ... from package DPQ, where the series expansion of δ(n) is used with 11 terms, starting with

delta(n) = 1/(12 n) - 1/(360 n^3) + 1/(1260 n^5) +/- O(n^{-7}).

Value

a numeric or other “numeric-alike” class vector, e.g., mpfr, of the same length as n.

Note

In principle, the direct formula should be replaced by a few terms of the series in powers of 1/n for large n, but we assume using high enough precision for n should be sufficient and “easier”.

Author(s)

Martin Maechler

References

Catherine Loader, see dbinom;

Martin Maechler (2021) log1pmx(), bd0(), stirlerr() – Computing Poisson, Binomial, Gamma Probabilities in R. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=DPQ/vignettes/log1pmx-etc.pdf

See Also

dbinom, stirlerr() in package DPQ which is a pure R version R's mathlib-internal C function.

Examples

  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8
  9
 10
 11
 12
 13
 14
 15
 16
 17
 18
 19
 20
 21
 22
 23
 24
 25
 26
 27
 28
 29
 30
 31
 32
 33
 34
 35
 36
 37
 38
 39
 40
 41
 42
 43
 44
 45
 46
 47
 48
 49
 50
 51
 52
 53
 54
 55
 56
 57
 58
 59
 60
 61
 62
 63
 64
 65
 66
 67
 68
 69
 70
 71
 72
 73
 74
 75
 76
 77
 78
 79
 80
 81
 82
 83
 84
 85
 86
 87
 88
 89
 90
 91
 92
 93
 94
 95
 96
 97
 98
 99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
### ----------------  Regular R  double precision -------------------------------

n <- n. <- c(1:10, 15, 20, 30, 50*(1:6), 100*(4:9), 10^(3:12))
(stE <- stirlerrM(n)) # direct formula is *not* good when n is large:
require(graphics)
plot(stirlerrM(n) ~ n, log = "x", type = "b", xaxt="n")
sfsmisc::eaxis(1, sub10=3)
for(k in 1:8) lines(n, stirlerrSer(n, k), col = k+1)
legend("top", c("stirlerrM(n)", paste0("stirlerrSer(n, k=", 1:8, ")")),
       pch=c(1,rep(NA,8)), col=1:(8+1), lty=1, bty="n")
## for larger n, current values are even *negative* ==> dbl prec *not* sufficient

## y in log-scale [same conclusion]
plot (stirlerrM(n) ~ n, log = "xy", type = "b", ylim = c(1e-13, 0.08))
for(k in 1:8) lines(n, stirlerrSer(n, k), col = k+1)
legend("topright", c("stirlerrM(n)", paste0("stirlerrSer(n, k=", 1:8, ")")),
       pch=c(1,rep(NA,8)), col=1:(8+1), lty=1, ncol=2, bty="n")

## the numbers:
options(digits=4, width=111)

stEmat. <- cbind(sM = stirlerrM(n),
                sapply(setNames(1:8, paste0("k=",1:8)),
                       function(k) stirlerrSer(n=n, k=k)))
stEmat.

## for printing n=<nice>:
N <- Rmpfr::asNumeric
dfm <- function(n, mm) data.frame(n=formatC(N(n)), N(mm), check.names=FALSE)

## relative differences:
dfm(n, stEmat.[,-1]/stEmat.[,1] - 1)
    # => stirlerrM() {with dbl prec} deteriorates after ~ n = 200--500
dfm(n, stEmat.[,-(1+8)]/stEmat.[,1+8] - 1)


### ----------------  MPFR High Accuracy -------------------------------

stopifnot(require(gmp),
          require(Rmpfr))
n <- as.bigz(n.)
## now repeat everything .. from above ... FIXME shows bugs !
## fully accurate using big rational arithmetic
class(stEserQ <- sapply(setNames(1:8, paste0("k=",1:8)),
                        function(k) stirlerrSer(n=n, k=k))) # list ..
stopifnot(sapply(stEserQ, class) == "bigq") # of exact big rationals
str(stEsQM  <- lapply(stEserQ, as, Class="mpfr"))# list of 8;  each prec. 128..702
    stEsQM. <- lapply(stEserQ, .bigq2mpfr, precB = 512) # constant higher precision
stEsQMm <- sapply(stEserQ, asNumeric) # a matrix

stEM   <- stirlerrM(mpfr(n, 128)) # now ok (loss of precision, but still ~ 10 digits correct)
stEM4k <- stirlerrM(mpfr(n, 4096))# assume "perfect"
## ==> what's the accuracy of the 128-bit 'stEM'?
N <- asNumeric # short
dfm(n, stEM/stEM4k - 1)
## 29 1e+06  4.470e-25
## 30 1e+07 -7.405e-23
## 31 1e+08 -4.661e-21
## 32 1e+09 -7.693e-20
## 33 1e+10  3.452e-17  (still ok)
## 34 1e+11 -3.472e-15  << now start losing
## 35 1e+12 -3.138e-13  <<<<
## same conclusion via  number of correct (decimal) digits:
dfm(n, log10(abs(stEM/stEM4k - 1)))

plot(N(-log10(abs(stEM/stEM4k - 1))) ~ N(n), type="o", log="x",
     xlab = quote(n), main = "#{correct digits} of 128-bit stirlerrM(n)")
ubits <- c(128, 52) # above 128-bit and double precision
abline(h = ubits* log10(2), lty=2)
text(1, ubits* log10(2), paste0(ubits,"-bit"), adj=c(0,0))

stopifnot(identical(stirlerrM(n), stEM)) # for bigz & bigq, we default to precBits = 128
all.equal(roundMpfr(stEM4k, 64),
          stirlerrSer (n., 8)) # 0.00212 .. because of 1st few n.  ==> drop these
all.equal(roundMpfr(stEM4k,64)[n. >= 3], stirlerrSer (n.[n. >= 3], 8)) # 6.238e-8

plot(asNumeric(abs(stirlerrSer(n., 8) - stEM4k)) ~ n.,
     log="xy", type="b", main="absolute error of stirlerrSer(n, 8)  & (n, 5)")
abline(h = 2^-52, lty=2); text(1, 2^-52, "52-bits", adj=c(1,-1)/8)
lines(asNumeric(abs(stirlerrSer(n., 5) - stEM4k)) ~ n., col=2)

plot(asNumeric(stirlerrM(n)) ~ n., log = "x", type = "b")
for(k in 1:8) lines(n, stirlerrSer(n, k), col = k+1)
legend("top", c("stirlerrM(n)", paste0("stirlerrSer(n, k=", 1:8, ")")),
       pch=c(1,rep(NA,8)), col=1:(8+1), lty=1, bty="n")

## y in log-scale
plot(asNumeric(stirlerrM(n)) ~ n., log = "xy", type = "b", ylim = c(1e-13, 0.08))
for(k in 1:8) lines(n, stirlerrSer(n, k), col = k+1)
legend("top", c("stirlerrM(n)", paste0("stirlerrSer(n, k=", 1:8, ")")),
       pch=c(1,rep(NA,8)), col=1:(8+1), lty=1, bty="n")
## all "looks" perfect (so we could skip this)

## the numbers ...
## %% FIXME a list instead of mpfrMatrix ... FIXME _____________
## FIXME ... asNumeric() needed or  as(*, "mpfr") or ...
ks <- 1:8 ## k <= 5 === FIXME --- use DPQ's  version !!
stirlS.l <- lapply(setNames(ks, paste0("k=",ks)),
                   function(k) stirlerrSer(n=n, k=k))
## ==> an mpfrMatrix of dim  35 x 5 :
mss <- do.call(cbind, lapply(stirlS.l, mpfr, precBits=256))
stEmat <- cbind(sM = stEM4k, mss)
signif(asNumeric(stEmat), 6) # so it prints nicely
## print *relative errors* nicely :
## simple double precision version of direct formula (cancellation for n >> 1 !):
stE <- stirlerrM(n.)
dfm(n , cbind(stEmat[,-1], dbl=stE)/stEM4k - 1)
## relative differences:
dfm(n,  stEmat[,-1]    / stEmat[,1] - 1)
dfm(n., stEmat[,-(1+8)]/ stEmat[,1+8] - 1)

DPQmpfr documentation built on May 18, 2021, 1:10 a.m.