Show HN: Compute polynomials twice as fast

92 points30 commentsa day ago
emil-lp

I read your arxiv paper yesterday (or was it the day before).

Do you think this can be used to speed up the algebraic method for k-path?

If so, you should enter next years PACE challenge.

IsTom

Pretty cool, especially in finite fields. Though coefficients seem to blow up pretty quick in Q?

show comments
pvillano

This is super cool. I learned a lot playing with the demo. I only knew Horner and Estrin, but I think I've gotten a grasp on most of them.

One small change I'd recommend is for the graph visualization, have a separate source node for each x, x^2, x^4 used. A single x source clutters the graph and hides the structure.

show comments
throwaway81523

If you're going to preprocess the polynomial, maybe you want to evaluate it at many different points. But then why not use the FFT?

show comments
voxelghost

It keeps flipping back to 'monic' from e.g. 'ln(1+x)' when switching between algorithms, and then seems to lock to 'monic'? (Am I missing something?)

Also I am curious, in your version vs. horner , how do both algorithms map onto number of fmadd operations?

show comments
vlovich123

Would this be applicable to fast hashes like WyHash and xxh3 or are those not using polynomials? Is this mainly for faster cryptographic hashes?

show comments
thomasahle

See also discussions here https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1wbgcke/commen... on how the actual math works out.

aetherspawn

I guess it’s not faster than using a table for CRC8?

show comments
gowld

From the abstract, a name that many on HN would recognize:

> We also give an injective polynomial construction for universal hashing that uses N multiplications to hash 2N values with a single random key. This improves the best previous construction by Daniel J. Bernstein (this http URL).

show comments
gowld

What is the tradeoff between multiplication and addition?

show comments