A fast method for the solution of a system of simultaneous linear equations—A method adapted to a particular problem

Abstract

In mineral deposit evaluation, the estimation of block values can involve the solution of as many as 100,000 systems of linear equations. To minimize computing costs it is important that the program to solve the linear systems be as efficient as possible. Standard library routines tend to contain very general stable methods using pivoting and iteration to ensure high accuracy solutions. Here, a particular method has been developed that gives a substantial improvement in run time at the occasional expense of accuracy and stability. The method is not new—just a simple application of Gaussian elimination in the symmetric case.