It's really useful for testing FEA algorithms/code. Tim Davis has done a ton of work developing numerical algorithms for sparse systems, his code is used by software like MATLAB and also bespoke supercomputer systems.
You mean the concept of a sparse matrix ? Well, for e.g. if you use FEM (Finite Element method) you usually end up with a huge linear system which has the nice property that more than 90% of his coefficients are zeros. A sparse matrix will store only the non-zero elements, this is a huge gain from the point of view of memory usage.
Similar considerations applies for using Finite Difference methods.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 34.8 ms ] threadSimilar considerations applies for using Finite Difference methods.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPICE#Introduction
However, god knows why this site is considered news worthy. I mean it's the same as it was yesterday, and the day before...