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Vladimir P. Gerdt
Wolfram Koepf
Werner M. Seiler
Evgenii V. Vorozhtsov (Eds.)
LNCS 11077

Computer Algebra
in Scientific Computing
20th International Workshop, CASC 2018
Lille, France, September 17–21, 2018
Proceedings

123
Lecture Notes in Computer Science 11077
Commenced Publication in 1973
Founding and Former Series Editors:
Gerhard Goos, Juris Hartmanis, and Jan van Leeuwen

Editorial Board
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Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Takeo Kanade
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
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University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
Jon M. Kleinberg
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
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ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
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Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
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Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
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TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany
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University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7407
Vladimir P. Gerdt Wolfram Koepf

Werner M. Seiler Evgenii V. Vorozhtsov (Eds.)


Computer Algebra
in Scientific Computing
20th International Workshop, CASC 2018
Lille, France, September 17–21, 2018
Proceedings

123
Editors
Vladimir P. Gerdt Werner M. Seiler
Laboratory of Information Technologies Institut für Mathematik
Joint Institute of Nuclear Research Universität Kassel
Dubna Kassel
Russia Germany
Wolfram Koepf Evgenii V. Vorozhtsov
Institut für Mathematik Institute of Theoretical and Applied
Universität Kassel Mechanics
Kassel Russian Academy of Sciences
Germany Novosibirsk
Russia

ISSN 0302-9743 ISSN 1611-3349 (electronic)


Lecture Notes in Computer Science
ISBN 978-3-319-99638-7 ISBN 978-3-319-99639-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99639-4

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© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018


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Preface

The International Workshop on Computer Algebra in Scientific Computing (CASC) is


an annual conference that brings together researchers and scientists working in the field
of computer algebra and researchers from various application areas that apply
pioneering methods of computer algebra in sciences such as physics, chemistry, life
sciences, and engineering, to discuss problems and solutions in the area, to identify new
issues, and to shape future directions for research.
This year, the 20th CASC conference was held in Lille (France). The computer
algebra group of Lille is one of the few French computer algebra groups hosted in a
computer science laboratory (initially the LIFL then CRIStAL, since 2015). This
context always pushed the group to develop symbolic methods with a focus on
applications and software development. Control theory has provided a major focus
since the group was founded in the 1980s by Gérard Jacob. The development of
symbolic methods dedicated to biological modeling has been continuously growing
since 2002, when Michel Petitot became group leader. Software development has
always been a major concern for the group, with a particular effort under the leadership
of François Boulier, group leader since 2011. In particular, at CRIStAL foundation, the
computer algebra group merged with a high-performance computing group, yielding
the “algebraic and high-performance computing” (CFHP) team, with the broader
“scientific computing” domain. In 2018, control theory received renewed interest from
the group, with the creation of GAIA (“geometry, algebra, informatics and applica-
tions”), both an Inria team and a subgroup of CFHP, led by Alban Quadrat.
From a computer algebra point of view, the research activity of the group was much
influenced by the works of Michel Fliess in control theory. The initial focus was on the
application of noncommutative algebra to the problem of expanding series from
dynamical systems by means of iterated integrals. Later, the group experience in
noncommutative algebra led to results in the theory of poly-logarithms (Hoang Ngoc
Minh and Joris Van Der Hoeven were group members at that time), which are related to
Riemann zeta function, and the investigation of chemical reaction networks (encoding
biological models) endowed with stochastic determination. In the 1990s, the simpli-
fication theory of systems of differential equations became a major domain, with two
approaches: (1) Ritt and Kolchin differential algebra and its elimination theory;
(2) differential geometry and Cartan’s equivalence method. The group was involved in
research on Ritt’s characteristic sets and made an important contribution to the theory
of regular chains both in the differential and in the polynomial case (Marc Moreno
Maza, now at ORCCA, was a group member for a few years). In terms of software, the
group developed an important relationship with Maplesoft. It released the diffalg (1996)
and the DifferentialAlgebra (2008) packages (itself relying on the open source BLAD
libraries). It contributed to the first version of the RegularChains library. All these
software packages have been shipped with the MAPLE standard library.
VI Preface

The aforementioned events influenced the choice of Lille as a venue for the CASC
2018 workshop.
This volume contains 24 full papers submitted to the workshop by the participants
and accepted by the Program Committee after a thorough reviewing process with
usually three independent referee reports. Additionally, the volume includes two
contributions corresponding to the invited talks.
Polynomial algebra, which is at the core of computer algebra, is represented by
contributions devoted to the computation of Pommaret bases using syzygies, factor-
ization of multivariate polynomials, tropical Newton–Puiseux polynomials, positive
solutions of systems of signed parametric polynomial inequalities, sparse polynomial
arithmetic with the BPAS library, blackbox polynomial system solver on parallel
shared memory computers, investigation of analytic complexity of a bivariate holo-
morphic function by means of computer algebra tools, localization of polynomial ideals
by a new “local primary algorithm,” computation of the sparse multivariate polynomial
remainder sequence, splitting permutation representations of finite groups by polyno-
mial algebra methods, tropicalization of linear subspaces, and efficient implementation
of the algorithms for the computation of Gröbner basis with the aid of the Haskell
compiler.
In his invited talk, Jean-Guillaume Dumas promotes the idea that the proof-of-work
certificates can be efficiently computed in the cloud. When there is such a cloud-based
service, demanding computations are outsourced in order to limit infrastructure costs.
The idea of verifiable computing is to associate a data structure, a proof-of-work
certificate, to the result of the outsourced computation. This allows a verification
algorithm to prove the validity of the result faster than by recomputing it. The
problem-specific procedures in computer algebra are also presented for exact linear
algebra computations that are Prover-optimal, that is, that have much less financial
overhead.
The tutorial of Marc Moreno Maza is devoted to the problem of the symbolic
computation of the limits of multivariate functions. Although the calculation of such
limits is supported, with some limitations, in general-purpose computer algebra systems
such as Maple and Mathematica, Maple is not capable of computing limits of rational
functions in more than two variables. In this tutorial, it was shown how various types of
limits can be computed by means of algebraic calculations. Examples cover the Zariski
closure of a constructible set, the tangent cone of an algebraic set at one of its singular
points, and the limit of a real multivariate rational function at one of its poles.
Four papers deal with applications of symbolic and symbolic-numeric computations
for investigating and solving partial differential equations (PDEs) and ODEs in
mathematical physics and fluid mechanics: a new finite difference strongly consistent
scheme for steady Stokes flow, solution of elliptic boundary-value problems using
multivariate simplex Lagrange elements, and invertibility of difference operators
arising at the approximation of ODEs.
Applications of CASs in mechanics, physics, and biology are represented by the
following themes: satellite dynamics with aerodynamic attitude control systems,
dynamical systems with irrational first integrals, and modeling of the evolution of a
staphylococcus population with the aid of nonlinear integro-differential equations.
Preface VII

The remaining topics include the application of the Bargmann–Moshinsky basis in


molecular and nuclear physics, the visualization of planar real algebraic curves with
singularities with the aid of a continuation method, signal processing with the aid of
Padé approximants, finding multiple solutions in nonlinear integer programming, and
investigation of noncommutative evolution equations with singularities.
The CASC 2018 workshop was supported financially by the University of Lille, the
Research Center in Computer Science, Signal and Automatics of Lille (CRIStAL -
UMR 9189), the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Inria Lille–Nord
Europe research center, and the Maplesoft company.
Our particular thanks are due to the members of the CASC 2018 local Organizing
Committee at the University of Lille, i.e., François Boulier, François Lemaire, and
Adrien Poteaux, who ably handled all the local arrangements in Lille. In addition, Prof.
F. Boulier provided us with the information about the computer algebra activities at the
University of Lille.
Furthermore, we want to thank all the members of the Program Committee for their
thorough work. We are grateful to Matthias Orth (Universität Kassel) for his technical
help in the preparation of the camera-ready manuscript for this volume. Finally, we are
grateful to the CASC publicity chair, Andreas Weber (Rheinische
Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn), and his assistant Hassan Errami for the design
of the conference poster and the management of the conference website (http://www.
casc.cs.uni-bonn.de).

July 2018 Vladimir P. Gerdt


Wolfram Koepf
Werner M. Seiler
Evgenii V. Vorozhtsov
Organization

CASC 2018 was organized jointly by the Institute of Mathematics at Kassel University
and the Université de Lille, Lille, France.

Workshop General Chairs

François Boulier, Lille, France


Vladimir P. Gerdt, Dubna, Russia
Werner M. Seiler, Kassel, Germany

Program Committee Chairs

Wolfram Koepf, Kassel, Germany


Evgenii V. Vorozhtsov, Novosibirsk, Russia

Program Committee

Moulay Barkatou, Limoges, France Veronika Pillwein, Linz, Austria


François Boulier, Lille, France Alexander Prokopenya, Warsaw, Poland
Jin-San Cheng, Beijing, China Georg Regensburger, Linz, Austria
Victor F. Edneral, Moscow, Russia Eugenio Roanes-Lozano, Madrid, Spain
Matthew England, Coventry, UK Valery Romanovski, Maribor, Slovenia
Jaime Gutierrez, Santander, Spain Timur Sadykov, Moscow, Russia
Sergey A. Gutnik, Moscow, Russia Doru Stefanescu, Bucharest, Romania
Thomas Hahn, Munich, Germany Thomas Sturm, Nancy, France
Jeremy Johnson, Philadelphia, USA Akira Terui, Tsukuba, Japan
Victor Levandovskyy, Aachen, Germany Elias Tsigaridas, Paris, France
Dominik Michels, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Jan Verschelde, Chicago, USA
Marc Moreno Maza, London, Canada Stephen M. Watt, Waterloo, Canada

Local Organization

François Boulier (Chair), Lille, France


François Lemaire, Lille, France
Adrien Poteaux, Lille, France
X Organization

Publicity Chair

Andreas Weber, Bonn, Germany

Website

http://www.casc.cs.uni-bonn.de/2018 (Webmaster: Hassan Errami)


Contents

Proof-of-Work Certificates that Can Be Efficiently Computed in the


Cloud (Invited Talk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Jean-Guillaume Dumas

On Unimodular Matrices of Difference Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18


S. A. Abramov and D. E. Khmelnov

Sparse Polynomial Arithmetic with the BPAS Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32


Mohammadali Asadi, Alexander Brandt, Robert H. C. Moir,
and Marc Moreno Maza

Computation of Pommaret Bases Using Syzygies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51


Bentolhoda Binaei, Amir Hashemi, and Werner M. Seiler

A Strongly Consistent Finite Difference Scheme for Steady Stokes


Flow and its Modified Equations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Yury A. Blinkov, Vladimir P. Gerdt, Dmitry A. Lyakhov,
and Dominik L. Michels

Symbolic-Numeric Methods for Nonlinear Integro-Differential Modeling . . . . 82


François Boulier, Hélène Castel, Nathalie Corson, Valentina Lanza,
François Lemaire, Adrien Poteaux, Alban Quadrat,
and Nathalie Verdière

A Continuation Method for Visualizing Planar Real Algebraic Curves


with Singularities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Changbo Chen and Wenyuan Wu

From Exponential Analysis to Padé Approximation and Tensor


Decomposition, in One and More Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Annie Cuyt, Ferre Knaepkens, and Wen-shin Lee

Symbolic Algorithm for Generating the Orthonormal


Bargmann–Moshinsky Basis for SUð3Þ Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
A. Deveikis, A. A. Gusev, V. P. Gerdt, S. I. Vinitsky, A. Góźdź,
and A. Pȩdrak

About Some Drinfel’d Associators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146


G. H. E. Duchamp, V. Hoang Ngoc Minh,
and K. A. Penson
XII Contents

On a Polytime Factorization Algorithm for Multilinear Polynomials


over F2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Pavel Emelyanov and Denis Ponomaryov

Tropical Newton–Puiseux Polynomials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177


Dima Grigoriev

Orthogonal Tropical Linear Prevarieties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187


Dima Grigoriev and Nicolai Vorobjov

Symbolic-Numerical Algorithms for Solving Elliptic Boundary-Value


Problems Using Multivariate Simplex Lagrange Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
A. A. Gusev, V. P. Gerdt, O. Chuluunbaatar, G. Chuluunbaatar,
S. I. Vinitsky, V. L. Derbov, A. Góźdź, and P. M. Krassovitskiy

Symbolic-Numeric Simulation of Satellite Dynamics with Aerodynamic


Attitude Control System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Sergey A. Gutnik and Vasily A. Sarychev

Finding Multiple Solutions in Nonlinear Integer Programming with


Algebraic Test-Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
M. I. Hartillo, J. M. Jiménez-Cobano, and J. M. Ucha

Positive Solutions of Systems of Signed Parametric


Polynomial Inequalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Hoon Hong and Thomas Sturm

Qualitative Analysis of a Dynamical System with Irrational First Integrals . . . 254


Valentin Irtegov and Tatiana Titorenko

Effective Localization Using Double Ideal Quotient


and Its Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Yuki Ishihara and Kazuhiro Yokoyama

A Purely Functional Computer Algebra System Embedded in Haskell . . . . . . 288


Hiromi Ishii

Splitting Permutation Representations of Finite Groups


by Polynomial Algebra Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Vladimir V. Kornyak

Factoring Multivariate Polynomials with Many Factors


and Huge Coefficients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Michael Monagan and Baris Tuncer

Beyond the First Class of Analytic Complexity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335


T. M. Sadykov
Contents XIII

A Theory and an Algorithm for Computing Sparse Multivariate Polynomial


Remainder Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Tateaki Sasaki

A Blackbox Polynomial System Solver on Parallel Shared


Memory Computers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Jan Verschelde

Computing Limits with the RegularChains and PowerSeries Libraries: from


Rational Functions to Topological Closures (Abstract of the Tutorial) . . . . . . 377
Marc Moreno Maza

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379


Proof-of-Work Certificates that Can Be
Efficiently Computed in the Cloud
(Invited Talk)

Jean-Guillaume Dumas(B)

Université Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire Jean Kuntzmann, CNRS, UMR 5224,


700 avenue centrale, IMAG - CS 40700, 38058 Grenoble, Cedex 9, France
Jean-Guillaume.Dumas@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr

Abstract. In an emerging computing paradigm, computational capa-


bilities, from processing power to storage capacities, are offered to users
over communication networks as a cloud-based service. There, demand-
ing computations are outsourced in order to limit infrastructure costs.
The idea of verifiable computing is to associate a data structure, a
proof-of-work certificate, to the result of the outsourced computation.
This allows a verification algorithm to prove the validity of the result,
faster than by recomputing it. We talk about a Prover (the server per-
forming the computations) and a Verifier.
Goldwasser, Kalai and Rothblum gave in 2008 a generic method to
verify any parallelizable computation, in almost linear time in the size
of the, potentially structured, inputs and the result. However, the extra
cost of the computations for the Prover (and therefore the extra cost
to the customer), although only almost a constant factor of the overall
work, is nonetheless prohibitive in practice.
Differently, we will here present problem-specific procedures in com-
puter algebra, e.g. for exact linear algebra computations, that are Prover-
optimal, that is that have much less financial overhead.

1 Introduction
In an emerging computing paradigm, computational capabilities, from processing
power to storage capacities, are offered to users over communication networks
as a service.
Many such outsourcing platforms are now well established, as Amazon web
services (through the Elastic Compute Cloud), Microsoft Azure, IBM Platform
Computing or Google cloud platform (via Google Compute Engine), as shown in
Fig. 1. None of these platforms, however, offer any guarantee whatsoever on the
calculation: no guarantee that the result is correct, nor even that the computation
has even effectively been done.

1.1 Verifiable Computing


This new paradigm holds enormous promise for increasing the utility of com-
putationally weak devices. A natural approach is for weak devices to delegate
c Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
V. P. Gerdt et al. (Eds.): CASC 2018, LNCS 11077, pp. 1–17, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99639-4_1
2 J.-G. Dumas

We run clusters so
you don't have to...

Fig. 1. Some outsourced computing services

expensive tasks, such as storing a large file or running a complex computation,


to more powerful entities (say servers) connected to the same network. While
the delegation approach seems promising, it raises an immediate concern: when
and how can a weak device verify that a computational task was completed cor-
rectly? This practically motivated question touches on foundational questions in
cryptography, coding theory, complexity theory, proofs, and algorithms.

www.psdgraphics.com
blog.fi−xifi.eu

function F, input x

y=F(x), proof ?

Fig. 2. Verifying the computation should take less time than computing it

More generally, the question of verifying a result at a lower cost (time, mem-
ory) than that of recomputing it, as shown on Fig. 2, is of paramount importance.
Another example of application is for the extension of the trust about results
computed via probabilistic or approximate algorithms. There the idea is to gain
confidence into the correctness, but only at a cost negligible when compared to
that of the computation.

1.2 Linear Algebra, Global Optimization

For instance, GL7d19 is an 1 911 130 × 1 955 309 matrix whose rank 1 033 568
was computed once in 2007 with a Monte-Carlo randomized algorithm [19]. This
required 1050 CPU days of computation. We thus need publicly verifiable cer-
tificates to improve our confidence in computational results.
Proof-of-Work Certificates that Can Be Efficiently Computed in the Cloud 3

In linear algebra our original motivation is also related to sum-of-squares. By


Artin’s solution to Hilbert 17th Problem, any polynomial inequality ∀ξ1 , . . . , ξn ∈
R, f (ξ1 , . . . , ξn ) ≥ g(ξ1 , . . . , ξn ) can be proved by a fraction of sum-of-squares:
   ⎛m ⎞
 
∃ui , vj ∈ R[x1 , . . . , xn ], f − g = u2i / ⎝ vj2 ⎠ (1)
i=1 j=1

Such proofs can be used to establish global minimality for g =


inf ξv ∈R f (ξ1 , . . . , ξn ) and constitute certificates in non-linear global optimiza-
tion. A symmetric integer matrix W ∈ SZn×n is positive semidefinite, denoted
by W  0, if all its eigenvalues, which then must be real numbers, are non-
negative. Then, a certificate for positive semidefiniteness of rational matrices
constitutes, by its Cholesky factorizability, the final computer algebra step in an
exact rational sum-of-squares proof, namely

∃e ≥ 0, W [1]  0, W [2]  0, W [2] = 0 :


(f − g)(x1 , . . . , xn ) · (me (x1 , . . . , xn )T W [2] me (x1 , . . . , xn )) =
md (x1 , . . . , xn )T W [1] md (x1 , . . . , xn ), (2)

where the entries in the vectors md , me are the terms occurring in ui , vj in (1).
In fact, (2) is the semidefinite program that one solves [43]. Then, the client
can verify the positiveness by checking Descartes’ rule of signs on the certified
characteristic polynomial of W [1] and W [2] . Thus arose the question how to give
possibly probabilistically checkable certificates for linear algebra problems.

1.3 Techniques

The tools used to provide such efficient proof-of-work certificates stem from pro-
grams that check their work [12], to proof of knowledge protocols [7], via error-
correcting codes [35,42] complexity theory [1] or secure multiparty protocols [17],
and the interaction of these different methodologies is crucial.
Here we will thus follow this road map:

– We recalled that global optimization can be reduced to linear algebra. There-


upon we will focus on certificates for linear algebra problems [43] in computer
algebra, which extend the randomized algorithms of Freivalds [32].
– We combine those with probabilistic interactive proofs of Babai [5] and Gold-
wasser et al. [39],
– as well as Fiat-Shamir heuristic [9,29] turning interactive certificates into
non-interactive heuristics subject to computational hardness.
– Overall, we obtain problem-specific efficient certificates for dense, sparse,
structured matrices with coefficients in fields or integral domains.
4 J.-G. Dumas

2 Interactive Protocols, the PCP Theorem and


Homomorphic Encryption

2.1 Arthur-Merlin Interactive Proof Systems

A proof system usually has two parts, a theorem T and a proof Π, and the
validity of the proof can be checked by a verifier V . Now, an interactive proof, or
a -protocol, is a dialogue between a prover P (or Peggy in the following) and
a verifier V (or Victor in the following), where V can ask a series of questions,
or challenges, q1 , q2 , . . . and P can respond alternatively, in successive rounds,
with a series of strings π1 , π2 , . . ., the responses, in order to prove the theorem T .
The theorem is sometimes decomposed into two parts, the hypothesis, or input,
H, and the commitment, C. Then the verifier can accept or reject the proof:
V (H, C, q1 , π1 , q2 , π2 , . . .) ∈ {accept, reject}.
To be useful, such proof systems should satisfy completeness (the prover
can convince the verifier that a true statement is indeed true) and soundness
(the prover cannot convince the verifier that a false statement is true). More
precisely, the protocol is complete if the probability that a true statement is
rejected by the verifier can be made arbitrarily small. Similarly, the protocol is
sound if the probability that a false statement is accepted by the verifier can be
made arbitrarily small. The completeness (resp. soundness) is perfect if accepted
(resp. rejected) statements are always true (resp. false).
It turns out that interactive proofs with perfect completeness are as powerful
as interactive proofs [33]. Thus in the following, as we want to prove correctness
of a result more than proving knowledge of it, we will mainly show interactive
proofs with perfect completeness.
The class of problems solvable by an interactive proof system (IP) is equal to
the class PSPACE [55] and a probabilistically checkable proof, PCP[r(n), π(n)] ,
for an input of length n, is a type of proof that can be checked by a randomized
algorithm using a bounded amount of randomness r(n) and reading a bounded
number of bits of the proof π(n). For instance, PCP[O(log n), O(1)] = NP [3,6].
In general, interactive protocols encompass many kinds of proofs and Prover
and Verifier settings. One can think of the difficulty of integer factorization ver-
sus that of re-multiplying found factors. Another example could be satisfiability
checking, where the solver has to explore the state space, while verifying a vari-
able assignment or a conflict clause could be much simpler [2]. In computer alge-
bra, the Prover can be a probabilistic algorithm or a symbolic-numeric program,
where the Verifier would perform the checks exactly or symbolically; further,
computer algebra systems could perform complex calculations where an inter-
active theorem prover (or proof assistant like Isabel-HOL or Coq) only has to a
posteriori formally verify the certificate [15,16].
Table 1 gives more examples of such settings.
Proof-of-Work Certificates that Can Be Efficiently Computed in the Cloud 5

Table 1. Examples of prover/verifier settings

Prover Verifier
Computer Scientist Mathematician
Computer Algebra system Formal proof assistant
Cloud User
Server Client
Cellphone Trusted platform module

2.2 Goldwasser et al. Prover Efficient Interactive Certificates


Now, efficient protocols (interactive proofs between a Prover, responsible for the
computation, and a Verifier, to be convinced) can be designed for delegating
computational tasks.
Recently, generic protocols, mixing zero-sum checks [45] and probabilistically
checkable proofs, have been designed by teams around Shafi Goldwasser at the
MIT or Harvard, for circuits with polylogarithmic depth [38,57], namely for
problems that can be efficiently solved on a parallel computer (in the NC or
AC complexity class). These results have also been extended to any structured
inputs (any polynomial-time-uniform polylog-depth Boolean circuits in the sense
of Beame’s et al. [8], division circuits) [23].
The resulting protocols are interactive and there is a trade-off between the
number of interactive rounds, the volume of communication and the computa-
tional cost [50]; the cost for the verifier being usually only roughly proportional
to the input size.
These protocols can, e.g., certify that two supersparse polynomials are rel-
atively prime in verifier cost which is polylog time (and rounds) in the degree.
The produced certificates, in analogy to processor-efficient parallel algorithms,
are Prover-efficient: if the cost to compute the result by the best known algo-
rithm is T (n) for a size n problem, then the cost to produce the result together
with the verifiable certificate is T (n)1+o(1) .
Those techniques can however produce a non negligible practical overhead
for the Prover and are restricted to certain classes of circuits.

2.3 Parno et al. Homomorphic Solutions


Another approach as been developed by Gentry et al., at Microsoft and IBM
research, it is Pinocchio. It solves a broader range of problems, to the cost of
using relatively inefficient homomorphic routines [48] in an amortized way.
The idea is that the Prover should run the program (or at least part of
the program twice), once normally on the input, and once homomorphically
on an encrypted version of the input. The Verifier will then verify the consis-
tency between the normal output and the encrypted one. Usually the Verifier is
required to run the algorithm at least once for a given size or structure of the
input but can reuse this for multiple inputs.
6 J.-G. Dumas

This generic procedure can be applied on specific linear algebra or polynomial


problems [25,28,31,60], or on generic quadratic arithmetic programs [48]. There,
fully homomorphic encryption can be used [36] or sometimes just pairings [48]
and/or cryptographic hashes [30].
Here also the Prover can be efficient, but subject in practice to the overhead
of homomorphic computations.

2.4 Public Verification, Delegatability, and Zero-Knowledge

Interactive certificates require some exchanges between the Prover and the Ver-
ifier. With such a protocol, the Verifier can be privately convinced that the
computation of the Prover produced the correct answer. This does not mean
that other people would be convinced by the transcript of their exchange: the
Prover and Verifier could be in cahoots and the supposedly random challenges
carefully crafted.
Fiat-Shamir heuristic [9,29] can thus turn interactive certificates into non-
interactive heuristics subject to computational hardness: the random challenges
are replaced by cryptographic hashes of all previous data and exchanges. Craft-
ing such values would then reduce to being able to forge cryptographic finger-
prints [20, Sect. 4.5].
Further, more properties could be sought for such protocols, such privacy
of data and/or computations. In this setting, a publicly verifiable computation
scheme can also be four algorithms (KeyGen, ProbGen, Compute, Verify), where
KeyGen is some (amortized) preparation of the data, ProbGen is the preparation
of the input, Compute is the work of the Prover and Verify is the work of the
Verifier [49]. Usually the Verifier also executes KeyGen and ProbGen but in a
more general setting these can be performed by different entities (respectively
called a Preparator and a Trustee).
This allows to define several adversary models but usually the protocols are
secure against a malicious Prover only (that is the Client must trust both the
Preparator and the Trustee).
One can also further impose that there is no interaction between the Client
and the Trustee after the Client has sent his input to the Server. Publicly veri-
fiable protocols with this property are said to be publicly delegatable [25,28,60].
Then, some different properties of the protocol could be desirable, such
as not disclosing the result but instead just providing a proof-of-work. This
results in general in zero-knowledge protocols over confidential data, such as
cryptocurrency transactions, as in, e.g., [39], with recent efficient implementa-
tions [10,11,13,14].

2.5 Problem-Specific Efficient Certificates

Differently, dedicated certificates (data structures and algorithms that are verifi-
able a posteriori, without interaction) have also been developed, e.g., in computer
algebra for exact linear algebra [20,22,24,32,43], even for problems that are not
Proof-of-Work Certificates that Can Be Efficiently Computed in the Cloud 7

structured. There the certificate constitute a proof of correctness of a result, not


of a computation, and can thus also detect bugs in the implementations.
Moreover, problem-specific certificates can gain crucial logarithmic factors
for the verifier and allow for optimal prover computational time, see Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Generic protocols [58] versus dedicated protocols for matrix multiplication

For this, the main difficulty is to be able to design verification algorithms


for a problem that are completely orthogonal to the computational algorithms
solving it, while remaining checkable in time and space not much larger than the
input.

3 Prover-Optimal Certificates in Linear Algebra


We show in this section, that such problem-specific certificates are attainable
in linear algebra, where we allow certificates that are validated by Monte Carlo
randomized algorithms.

3.1 Freivalds Zero Equivalence of Matrix Expressions


The seminal certificate in linear algebra is due to Rūsiņš Freivalds [32]: quadratic
time is feasible because a matrix multiplication AB can be certified by the
8 J.-G. Dumas

resulting product matrix C via the probabilistic projection to matrix-vector


products (see also [44] who reduced the requirements to only O(log(n)) random
bits), shown in Protocol 1.

Prover Communication Verifier

A ∈ Fm×k , B ∈ Fk×n

−−−−C
$
Compute C = A · B −−−−→ r←−S⊆F
Form v = [1, r, r2 , . . . , r n−1 ]T
?
A (Bv) − Cv = 0

Protocol 1. Matrix multiplication certificate [44].

In Protocol 1, we give the variant of [44] that requires log(n) random bits,
but works over sufficiently large coefficient domains, as its soundness is 1 − |S|n
by the DeMillo-Lipton/Schwartz/Zippel lemma [18,53,61]. Freivalds’ original
version randomly selects a zero-one vector instead. This requires n random bits
instead but applies to any ring and gives a soundness larger than 21 .
In both cases it is sufficient to repeat the test several times to achieve any
desired probability.

3.2 Reductions to Matrix Multiplication

With a certificate for matrix expressions, then one can certify any algorithm
that reduces to matrix multiplication: the Prover records all the inter-
mediate matrix products and sends them to the Verifier who reruns the same
algorithm but checks the matrix products instead of computing them [43], as
shown in Protocol 2.

Prover Communication Verifier

All intermediate Runs the algorithm but


Runs the algorithm matrix products replace each matrix products
−−−−−−−−−−−−−→ by Freivalds’ checks

Protocol 2. Certificates with reduction to matrix multiplication [43, Sect. 5].

Overall, the communications and Verifier computational cost are given by


taking ω = 2 in the Prover’s complexity bounds (with potential additional log-
arithmic factors due to summations). Further, the production of the certificate
Proof-of-Work Certificates that Can Be Efficiently Computed in the Cloud 9

has no computational overhead for the Prover: it only adds the communication
of the intermediate matrix products.
For instance, Storjohann’s Las Vegas rank algorithm of integer matrices [56]
becomes a non-interactive/non-cryptographic Monte Carlo checkable proof-of-
work certificate that has soft-linear time communication and verifier bit com-
plexity in the number of input bits!

3.3 Sparse or Structured Matrices

When the matrices are sparse or present some structure, quadratic run time
and/or quadratic communications might be overkill for the Verifier. There it is
better if his communications and computational cost is of the form μ(A)+n1+o(1)
where μ(A) is the number of operations to perform a matrix-vector product. This
scheme is thus also interesting if the considered matrix is only given as a black
box [40].
In that vein, we now have certificates for:

– non-singularity, Protocol 3;
– an upper bound to the rank, Protocol 4 (if elimination on the input
matrix is possible for the Prover then a variant without preconditioners can
be used [24,26]);
– the rank, combining Protocols 3 and 4;
– the minimal polynomial, using Protocol 5 (where fuA,v is the monic scalar
minimal generating polynomial of the sequence uT v, . . . , uT Ai v, ρA,v
u is such
that ρA,v
u = fuA,v ·G with G the generating function of the latter sequence, for
random vectors u and v, chosen by the Verifier [41, Theorem 5]);
– the determinant, Protocol 6, which randomness could be reduced from O(n)
to a constant number of field elements [21, Sect. 7].

Additionally, properties of the given matrices can also sometimes be discov-


ered at low cost: whether the blackbox is a band matrix, has a low displace-
ment rank, has a few or many nilpotent blocks or invariant factors [27].
Similarly, the existence of a triangular one sided equivalence, as well as the
rank profiles can also be certified without sending an explicit factorization to
the Verifier [24]. For the latter, the price to pay is to require a linear number of
rounds.

3.4 Integer or Polynomial Matrices

Over an integral domain, the verification procedure can be performed via a ran-
domly chosen modular projection. If there are sufficiently many small maximal
ideals, then one can uniformly choose one at random and then ask for a certifi-
cation of the result in the associated quotient field as shown in Protocol 7.
For instance this gives very efficient certificates for polynomial or integer/ra-
tional matrices, provided that one has a bound on the degree or the magnitude
of the coefficients:
10 J.-G. Dumas

P rover V erif ier

Input A ∈ Fn×n

1 : non-singular
Commitment /

o 2: b $
Challenge − S n ⊂ Fn
b←

3: w / ?
Response w ∈ Fn Aw = b

Protocol 3. Blackbox interactive certificate of non-singularity [20]

P rover V erif ier

A ∈ Fm×n S⊂F

1: r / ?
rank(A) ≤ r r < min{m, n}

o 2 : U, V U ∈ Bm×m
S , V ∈ Bn×n
S

preconditioners of size n1+o(1)


3: w /
?
w ∈ Fr+1 = 0 w = 0
 
Ir+1 ?
[Ir+1 |0] U AV w=0
0

Protocol 4. Blackbox upper bound to the rank certificate [20]

Prover Communication Verifier


H(λ) = fuA,v (λ),
H, h
h(λ) = ρA,v
u (λ). −
−−−−− →
φ, ψ ∈ F[λ] with
φ, ψ ?
φfuA,v + ψρA,v
u = 1, −
−−−−− → deg(φ) ≤ deg(h) − 1,
?
deg(ψ) ≤ deg(H) − 1.
Random r0 ∈ S ⊆ F.
?
Checks GCD(H(λ), h(λ)) = 1 by φ(r0 )H(r0 ) + ψ(r0 )h(r0 ) = 1.
r1
Computes w such that←−−− − Random r1 ∈ S ⊆ F.
−−
? ?
(r1 In − A)w = v. −−w
− −−−→ Checks (r1 In − A)w = v and (uT w)H(r1 ) = h(r1 ).
Returns fuA,v (λ) = H(λ).

Protocol 5. Certificate for fuA,v [22]


Proof-of-Work Certificates that Can Be Efficiently Computed in the Cloud 11

Prover Communication Verifier

1. Form B = DA with
D, u, v
D ∈ S n ⊆ F∗n −−−−−−−−−−→
and u, v ∈ S n ,
s.t. deg(fuB,v ) = n.
Protocol 5
H, h, φ, ψ
2. −−−−−−−−−−→ Checks:
3. ←−−−−r−1
−−−−− deg(H) = n,
?

−−−−−w
?
4. −−−−−→ H = fuB,v , w.h.p.

fuB,v (0)
5. Returns .
det(D)

Protocol 6. Determinant certificate for a non-singular blackbox [22]

Prover Communication Verifier

Commitment Result r ∈ R −−−−−r−−−→


←−−−I−−−−−
$
Challenge I←
− maximal ideals
x, CR/I ?
Response Result x ∈ R/I with −−−−−−−−→ x ≡ r mod I and
?
field certificate CR/I CR/I (x) = valid

Protocol 7. Certification in a quotient field [20, Sects. 3.2 and 4.4].

– For integral matrices, if the true result v is bounded in magnitude, then


only a finite number of prime numbers will divide the difference between the
commitment r and the result. Therefore the result can be checked over a
small prime field [20, Theorem 5].
– For polynomial matrices, if the true v(X) result’s degree is bounded, then
only a finite number of evaluation points can be roots of the difference poly-
nomial between the committed one r(X) and the result. Therefore the result
can be checked in the ground field at a small evaluation point [20, Theorem 2].
The latter results allows, for instance, to certify the global optimization prob-
lems of Sect. 1.2. This is illustrated in Fig. 4, where many of the reductions pre-
sented here are recalled.

3.5 Non-interactive Certificates


The certificates in Sects. 3.1 and 3.2 are non-interactive: all the communications
can be recorded and publicly verified later.
On the contrary the certificates of Sects. 3.3 and 3.4 are interactive: the Ver-
ifier chooses some random bits during the computation of the certificate. Non-
interactivity can be recovered via Fiat-Shamir scheme: any random bits are gen-
12
J.-G. Dumas

Fig. 4. Global optimization via problem-specific interactive certificates: dense (purple) or sparse (red) algebraic problems, as well as over
the reals (green) or oblivious (yellow). (Color figure online)
Proof-of-Work Certificates that Can Be Efficiently Computed in the Cloud 13

erated by cryptographic hashes of the inputs and all the previous intermediate
commitments. Soundness is then subject to standard cryptographic assumptions.
For sparse or structured problems fewer results exist without this assumption,
or with worse complexity bounds:
– For the minimal polynomial (scalar or matrix) or the determinant, non-
interactive certificates exist, but with communications and computational
cost O(n μ(A)) instead of μ(A) + n1+o(1) [21].
– Non-interactive certificates can also verify polynomial minimal approximant
bases in O(mD + mω ), where D is the sum of the column degrees of the
output [37].

4 Some Open Problems


We conclude this survey with some open problems in the area of problem specific
linear algebra certificates:

– Sparse Smith form: for dense matrices, one can interactively certify any
normal form via a Freivalds certificate on a randomly chosen modular factor-
ization. With sparse matrices, even the modular projection of the change of
base can be too large. In that setting extending protocols for the rank or the
determinant to deal with the Smith form should be possible.
– Non integral domains certificates: more generally, how to efficiently cer-
tify some properties when there is no quotients or if those properties do not
carry over (e.g., Smith form)?
– We have defined certificates resisting a malicious server with unbounded
power. This is error detection with unbounded number of errors. Thus the
question of the complexity of problem specific unbounded error correc-
tion also arises. This path again was first taken for matrix multiplication [35]
and was recently extended to the matrix inverse [51].

Acknowledgment. I thank Brice Boyer, Pascal Lafourcade, Shafi Goldwasser, Erich


Kaltofen, Julio López Fenner, David Lucas, Vincent Neiger, Jean-Baptiste Orfila,
Clément Pernet, Maxime Puys, Jean-Louis Roch, Dan Roche, Guy Rothblum, Justin
Thaler, Emmanuel Thomé, Gilles Villard, Lihong Zhi and an anonymous referee for
their helpful comments.

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building up her navy. Had the colonies been thirteen islands, the sea
power of England would quickly have settled the question; but
instead of such a physical barrier they were separated only by local
jealousies which a common danger sufficiently overcame. To enter
deliberately on such a contest, to try to hold by force so extensive a
territory, with a large hostile population, so far from home, was to
renew the Seven Years’ War with France and Spain, and with the
Americans, against, instead of for, England. The Seven Years’ War
had been so heavy a burden that a wise government would have
known that the added weight could not be borne, and have seen it
was necessary to conciliate the colonists. The government of the day
was not wise, and a large element of England’s sea power was
sacrificed; but by mistake, not willfully; through arrogance, not
through weakness.
This steady keeping to a general line of policy was doubtless made
specially easy for successive English governments by the clear
indications of the country’s conditions. Singleness of purpose was to
some extent imposed. The firm maintenance of her sea power, the
haughty determination to make it felt, the wise state of preparation
in which its military element was kept, were yet more due to that
feature of her political institutions which practically gave the
government, during the period in question, into the hands of a class,
—a landed aristocracy. Such a class, whatever its defects otherwise,
readily takes up and carries on a sound political tradition, is
naturally proud of its country’s glory, and comparatively insensible
to the sufferings of the community by which that glory is maintained.
It readily lays on the pecuniary burden necessary for preparation and
for endurance of war. Being as a body rich, it feels those burdens
less. Not being commercial, the sources of its own wealth are not so
immediately endangered, and it does not share that political timidity
which characterizes those whose property is exposed and business
threatened,—the proverbial timidity of capital. Yet in England this
class was not insensible to anything that touched her trade for good
or ill. Both houses of Parliament vied in careful watchfulness, over its
extension and protection, and to the frequency of their inquiries a
naval historian attributes the increased efficiency of the executive
power in its management of the navy. Such a class also naturally
imbibes and keeps up a spirit of military honor, which is of the first
importance in ages when military institutions have not yet provided
the sufficient substitute in what is called esprit-de-corps. But
although full of class feeling and class prejudice, which made
themselves felt in the navy as well as elsewhere, their practical sense
left open the way of promotion to its highest honors to the more
humbly born; and every age saw admirals who had sprung from the
lowest of the people. In this the temper of the English upper class
differed markedly from that of the French. As late as 1789, at the
outbreak of the Revolution, the French Navy List still bore the name
of an official whose duty was to verify the proofs of noble birth on the
part of those intending to enter the naval school.
Since 1815, and especially in our own day, the government of
England has passed very much more into the hands of the people at
large. Whether her sea power will suffer therefrom remains to be
seen. Its broad basis still remains in a great trade, large mechanical
industries, and an extensive colonial system. Whether a democratic
government will have the foresight, the keen sensitiveness to
national position and credit, the willingness to ensure its prosperity
by adequate outpouring of money in times of peace, all of which are
necessary for military preparation, is yet an open question. Popular
governments are not generally favorable to military expenditure,
however necessary, and there are signs that England tends to drop
behind.
17. Results of the Seven Years’ War[44]

Nevertheless, the gains of England were very great, not only in


territorial increase, nor yet in maritime preponderance, but in the
prestige and position achieved in the eyes of the nations, now fully
opened to her great resources and mighty power. To these results,
won by the sea, the issue of the continental war offered a singular
and suggestive contrast. France had already withdrawn, along with
England, from all share in that strife, and peace between the other
parties to it was signed five days after the Peace of Paris. The terms
of the peace was simply the status quo ante bellum. By the estimate
of the King of Prussia, one hundred and eighty thousand of his
soldiers had fallen or died in this war, out of a kingdom of five
million souls, while the losses of Russia, Austria, and France
aggregated four hundred and sixty thousand men. The result was
simply that things remained as they were.[45] To attribute this only to
a difference between the possibilities of land and sea war is of course
absurd. The genius of Frederick, backed by the money of England,
had proved an equal match for the mismanaged and not always
hearty efforts of a coalition numerically overwhelming.
What does seem a fair conclusion is, that States having a good
seaboard, or even ready access to the ocean by one or two outlets,
will find it to their advantage to seek prosperity and extension by the
way of the sea and of commerce, rather than in attempts to unsettle
and modify existing political arrangements in countries where a
more or less long possession of power has conferred acknowledged
rights, and created national allegiance or political ties. Since the
Treaty of Paris in 1763, the waste places of the world have been
rapidly filled; witness our own continent, Australia, and even South
America. A nominal and more or less clearly defined political
possession now generally exists in the most forsaken regions, though
to this statement there are some marked exceptions; but in many
places this political possession is little more than nominal, and in
others of a character so feeble that it cannot rely upon itself alone for
support or protection. The familiar and notorious example of the
Turkish Empire, kept erect only by the forces pressing upon it from
opposing sides, by the mutual jealousies of powers that have no
sympathy with it, is an instance of such weak political tenure; and
though the question is wholly European, all know enough of it to be
aware that the interest and control of the sea powers is among the
chief, if not the first, of the elements that now fix the situation; and
that they, if intelligently used, will direct the future inevitable
changes. Upon the western continents the political condition of the
Central American and tropical South American States is so unstable
as to cause constant anxiety about the maintenance of internal order,
and seriously to interfere with commerce and with the peaceful
development of their resources. So long as—to use a familiar
expression—they hurt no one but themselves, this may go on; but for
a long time the citizens of more stable governments have been
seeking to exploit their resources, and have borne the losses arising
from their distracted condition. North America and Australia still
offer large openings to immigration and enterprise; but they are
filling up rapidly, and as the opportunities there diminish, the
demand must arise for a more settled government in those
disordered States, for security to life and for reasonable stability of
institutions enabling merchants and others to count upon the future.
There is certainly no present hope that such a demand can be
fulfilled from the existing native materials; if the same be true when
the demand arises, no theoretical positions, like the Monroe
Doctrine, will prevent interested nations from attempting to remedy
the evil by some measure, which, whatever it may be called, will be a
political interference. Such interferences must produce collisions,
which may be at times settled by arbitration, but can scarcely fail at
other times to cause war. Even for a peaceful solution, that nation
will have the strongest arguments which has the strongest organized
force.
It need scarcely be said that the successful piercing of the Central
American Isthmus at any point may precipitate the moment that is
sure to come sooner or later. The profound modification of
commercial routes expected from this enterprise, the political
importance to the United States of such a channel of communication
between her Atlantic and Pacific seaboards, are not, however, the
whole nor even the principal part of the question. As far as can be
seen, the time will come when stable governments for the American
tropical States must be assured by the now existing powerful and
stable States of America or Europe. The geographical position of
those States, the climatic conditions, make it plain at once that sea
power will there, even more than in the case of Turkey, determine
what foreign State shall predominate,—if not by actual possession, by
its influence over the native governments. The geographical position
of the United States and her intrinsic power give her an undeniable
advantage; but that advantage will not avail if there is a great
inferiority of organized brute-force, which still remains the last
argument of republics as of kings.
Herein lies to us the great and still living interest of the Seven
Years’ War. In it we have seen and followed England, with an army
small as compared with other States, as is still her case to-day, first
successfully defending her own shores, then carrying her arms in
every direction, spreading her rule and influence over remote
regions, and not only binding them to her obedience, but making
them tributary to her wealth, her strength, and her reputation. As
she loosens the grasp and neutralizes the influence of France and
Spain in regions beyond the sea, there is perhaps seen the prophecy
of some other great nation in days yet to come, that will incline the
balance of power in some future sea war, whose scope will be
recognized afterward, if not by contemporaries, to have been the
political future and the economical development of regions before
lost to civilization; but that nation will not be the United States if the
moment find her indifferent, as now, to the empire of the seas.
The direction then given to England’s efforts, by the instinct of the
nation and the fiery genius of Pitt, continued after the war, and has
profoundly influenced her subsequent policy. Mistress now of North
America, lording it in India, through the company whose territorial
conquests had been ratified by native princes, over twenty millions of
inhabitants,—a population larger than that of Great Britain and
having a revenue respectable alongside of that of the home
government,—England, with yet other rich possessions scattered far
and wide over the globe, had ever before her eyes, as a salutary
lesson, the severe chastisement which the weakness of Spain had
allowed her to inflict upon that huge disjointed empire. The words of
the English naval historian of that war, speaking about Spain, apply
with slight modifications to England in our own day.
“Spain is precisely that power against which England can always
contend with the fairest prospect of advantage and honor. That
extensive monarchy is exhausted at heart, her resources lie at a great
distance, and whatever power commands the sea, may command the
wealth and commerce of Spain. The dominions from which she
draws her resources, lying at an immense distance from the capital
and from one another, make it more necessary for her than for any
other State to temporize, until she can inspire with activity all parts
of her enormous but disjointed empire.”[46]
It would be untrue to say that England is exhausted at heart; but
her dependence upon the outside world is such as to give a certain
suggestiveness to the phrase.
This analogy of positions was not overlooked by England. From
that time forward up to our own day, the possessions won for her by
her sea power have combined with that sea power itself to control
her policy. The road to India—in the days of Clive a distant and
perilous voyage on which she had not a stopping-place of her own—
was reinforced as opportunity offered by the acquisition of St.
Helena, of the Cape of Good Hope, of the Mauritius. When steam
made the Red Sea and Mediterranean route practicable, she acquired
Aden, and yet later has established herself at Socotra. Malta had
already fallen into her hands during the wars of the French
Revolution; and her commanding position, as the corner-stone upon
which the coalitions against Napoleon rested, enabled her to claim it
at the Peace of 1815. Being but a short thousand miles from
Gibraltar, the circles of military command exercised by these two
places intersect. The present day has seen the stretch from Malta to
the Isthmus of Suez, formerly without a station, guarded by the
cession to her of Cyprus. Egypt, despite the jealousy of France, has
passed under English control. The importance of that position to
India, understood by Napoleon and Nelson, led the latter at once to
send an officer overland to Bombay with the news of the battle of the
Nile and the downfall of Bonaparte’s hopes. Even now, the jealousy
with which England views the advance of Russia in Central Asia is
the result of those days in which her sea power and resources
triumphed over the weakness of D’Aché and the genius of Suffren,
and wrenched the peninsula of India from the ambition of the
French.
“For the first time since the Middle Ages,” says M. Martin,
speaking of the Seven Years’ War, “England had conquered France
single-handed almost without allies, France having powerful
auxiliaries. She had conquered solely by the superiority of her
government.”
Yes! but by the superiority of her government using the
tremendous weapon of her sea power. This made her rich and in turn
protected the trade by which she had her wealth. With her money she
upheld her few auxiliaries, mainly Prussia and Hanover, in their
desperate strife. Her power was everywhere that her ships could
reach, and there was none to dispute the sea to her. Where she would
she went, and with her went her guns and her troops. By this
mobility her forces were multiplied, those of her enemies distracted.
Ruler of the seas, she everywhere obstructed its highways. The
enemies’ fleets could not join; no great fleet could get out, or if it did,
it was only to meet at once, with uninured officers and crews, those
who were veterans in gales and warfare. Save in the case of Minorca,
she carefully held her own sea bases and eagerly seized those of the
enemy. What a lion in the path was Gibraltar to the French
squadrons of Toulon and Brest! What hope for French succor to
Canada, when the English fleet had Louisburg under its lee?
The one nation that gained in this war was that which used the sea
in peace to earn its wealth, and ruled it in war by the extent of its
navy, by the number of its subjects who lived on the sea or by the sea,
and by its numerous bases of operations scattered over the globe. Yet
it must be observed that these bases themselves would have lost their
value if their communications remained obstructed. Therefore the
French lost Louisburg, Martinique, Pondicherry; so England herself
lost Minorca. The service between the bases and the mobile force,
between the ports and the fleets, is mutual.[47] In this respect the
navy is essentially a light corps; it keeps open the communications
between its own ports, it obstructs those of the enemy; but it sweeps
the sea for the service of the land, it controls the desert that man may
live and thrive on the habitable globe.
18. Eighteenth Century Formalism in Naval
Tactics[48]

Tourville,[49] though a brilliant seaman, thus not only typified an era


of transition, with which he was contemporary, but fore-shadowed
the period of merely formal naval warfare, precise, methodical, and
unenterprising, emasculated of military virility, although not of mere
animal courage. He left to his successors the legacy of a great name,
but also unfortunately that of a defective professional tradition. The
splendid days of the French Navy under Louis XIV passed away with
him,—he died in 1701; but during the long period of naval lethargy
on the part of the state, which followed, the French naval officers, as
a class, never wholly lost sight of professional ideals. They proved
themselves, on the rare occasions that offered, before 1715 and
during the wars of Hawke and Rodney, not only gallant seamen after
the pattern of Tourville, but also exceedingly capable tacticians, upon
a system good as far as it went, but defective on Tourville’s express
lines, in aiming rather at exact dispositions and defensive security
than at the thorough-going initiative and persistence which
confounds and destroys the enemy. “War,” to use Napoleon’s phrase,
“was to be waged without running risks.” The sword was drawn, but
the scabbard was kept ever open for its retreat.
The English, in the period of reaction which succeeded the Dutch
wars, produced their own caricature of systematized tactics. Even
under its influence, up to 1715, it is only just to say they did not
construe naval skill to mean anxious care to keep one’s own ships
intact. Rooke, off Malaga, in 1704, illustrated professional
fearlessness of consequences as conspicuously as he had shown
personal daring in the boat attack at La Hogue; but his plans of battle
exemplified the particularly British form of inefficient naval action.
There was no great difference in aggregate force between the French
fleet and that of the combined Anglo-Dutch under his orders. The
former, drawing up in the accustomed line of battle, ship following
ship in a single column, awaited attack. Rooke, having the advantage
of the wind, and therefore the power of engaging at will, formed his
command in a similar and parallel line a few miles off, and thus all
stood down together, the ships maintaining their line parallel to that
of the enemy, and coming into action at practically the same
moment, van to van, center to center, rear to rear. This ignored
wholly the essential maxim of all intelligent warfare, which is so to
engage as markedly to outnumber the enemy at a point of main
collision. If he be broken there, before the remainder of his force
come up, the chances all are that a decisive superiority will be
established by this alone, not to mention the moral effect of partial
defeat and disorder. Instead of this, the impact at Malaga was so
distributed as to produce a substantial equality from one end to the
other of the opposing fronts. The French, indeed, by strengthening
their center relatively to the van and rear, to some extent modified
this condition in the particular instance; but the fact does not seem
to have induced any alteration in Rooke’s dispositions. Barring mere
accident, nothing conclusive can issue from such arrangements. The
result accordingly was a drawn battle, although Rooke says that the
fight, which was maintained on both sides “with great fury for three
hours, ... was the sharpest day’s service that I ever saw;” and he had
seen much,—Beachy Head, La Hogue, Vigo Bay, not to mention his
own great achievement in the capture of Gibraltar.
This method of attack remained the ideal—if such a word is not
misnomer in such a case—of the British Navy, not merely as a matter
of irreflective professional acceptance, but laid down in the official
“Fighting Instructions.”[50] It cannot be said that these err on the side
of lucidity; but their meaning to contemporaries in this particular
respect is ascertained, not only by fair inference from their contents,
but by the practical commentary of numerous actions under
commonplace commanders-in-chief. It further received authoritative
formulation in the specific finding of the Court-Martial upon
Admiral Byng, which was signed by thirteen experienced-officers.
“Admiral Byng should have caused his ships to tack together, and
should immediately have borne down upon the enemy; his van
steering for the enemy’s van, his rear for its rear, each ship making
for the one opposite to her in the enemy’s line, under such sail as
would have enabled the worst sailer to preserve her station in the
line of battle.”[51] Each phrase of this opinion is a reflection of an
article in the Instructions. The line of battle was the naval fetish of
the day; and, be it remarked, it was the more dangerous because in
itself an admirable and necessary instrument, constructed on
principles essentially accurate. A standard wholly false may have its
error demonstrated with comparative ease; but no servitude is more
hopeless than that of unintelligent submission to an idea formally
correct, yet incomplete. It has all the vicious misleading of a half-
truth unqualified by appreciation of modifying conditions; and so
seamen who disdained theories, and hugged the belief in themselves
as “practical,” became doctrinaires in the worst sense.
19. The New Tactics[52]

Rodney and De Guichen, April 17, 1780

Despite his brilliant personal courage and professional skill, which in


the matter of tactics was far in advance of his contemporaries in
England, Rodney, as a commander-in-chief, belongs rather to the
wary, cautious school of the French tacticians than to the impetuous,
unbounded eagerness of Nelson. As in Tourville we have seen the
desperate fighting of the seventeenth century, unwilling to leave its
enemy, merging into the formal, artificial—we may almost say
trifling—parade tactics of the eighteenth, so in Rodney we shall see
the transition from those ceremonious duels to an action which,
while skillful in conception, aimed at serious results. For it would be
unjust to Rodney to press the comparison to the French admirals of
his day. With a skill that De Guichen recognized as soon as they
crossed swords, Rodney meant mischief, not idle flourishes.
Whatever incidental favors fortune might bestow by the way, the
objective from which his eye never wandered was the French fleet,—
the organized military force of the enemy on the sea. And on the day
when Fortune forsook the opponent who had neglected her offers,
when the conqueror of Cornwallis failed to strike while he had
Rodney at a disadvantage, the latter won a victory[53] which
redeemed England from the depths of anxiety, and restored to her by
one blow all those islands which the cautious tactics of the allies had
for a moment gained, save only Tobago.
De Guichen and Rodney met for the first time on the 17th of April,
1780, three weeks after the arrival of the latter. The French fleet was
beating to windward in the channel between Martinique and
Dominica, when the enemy was made in the south-east. A day was
spent in maneuvering for the weather-gage, which Rodney got. The
two fleets being now well to leeward of the islands (see Plate), both
on the starboard tack heading to the northward and the French on
the lee bow of the English, Rodney, who was carrying a press of sail,
signalled to his fleet that he meant to attack the enemy’s rear and
center with his whole force; and when he had reached the position he
thought suitable, ordered them to keep away eight points (90°)
together (A, A, A). De Guichen, seeing the danger of the rear, wore
his fleet all together and stood down to succor it. Rodney, finding
himself foiled, hauled up again on the same tack as the enemy, both
fleets now heading to the southward and eastward.[54] Later, he again
made signal for battle, followed an hour after, just at noon, by the
order (quoting his own despatch), “for every ship to bear down and
steer for her opposite in the enemy’s line.” This, which sounds like
the old story of ship to ship, Rodney explains to have meant her
opposite at the moment, not her opposite in numerical order. His
own words are: “In a slanting position, that my leading ships might
attack the van ships of the enemy’s center division, and the whole
British fleet be opposed to only two thirds of the enemy” (B, B). The
difficulty and misunderstanding which followed seem to have sprung
mainly from the defective character of the signal book. Instead of
doing as the admiral wished, the leading ships (a) carried sail so as to
reach their supposed station abreast their numerical opposite in the
order. Rodney stated afterward that when he bore down the second
time, the French fleet was in a very extended line of battle; and that,
had his orders been obeyed, the center and rear must have been
disabled before the van could have joined.
There seems every reason to believe that Rodney’s intentions
throughout were to double on the French, as asserted. The failure
sprang from the signal book and tactical inefficiency of the fleet; for
which he, having lately joined, was not answerable. But the ugliness
of his fence was so apparent to De Guichen, that he exclaimed, when
the English fleet kept away the first time, that six or seven of his
ships were gone; and sent word to Rodney that if his signals had
been obeyed he would have had him for his prisoner.[55] A more
convincing proof that he recognized the dangerousness of his enemy
is to be found in the fact that he took care not to have the lee-gage in
their subsequent encounters. Rodney’s careful plans being upset, he
showed that with them he carried all the stubborn courage of the
most downright fighter; taking his own ship close to the enemy and
ceasing only when the latter hauled off, her foremast and mainyard
gone, and her hull so damaged that she could hardly be kept afloat.
20. Sea Power in the American Revolution[56]

Graves and De Grasse off the Chesapeake

[Preliminary to the events narrated, the general naval situation was


as follows: The main British and French fleets, under Rodney and De
Grasse, respectively, were in the West Indies, while a small British
division was under Graves at New York, and a French squadron
under De Barras was based on Newport, R. I. The squadrons on the
American coast had met in a desultory action off the Virginia capes
on March 16, 1781, after which the French commander had returned
to Newport and left the British in control.—Editor.]
The way of the sea being thus open and held in force, two thousand
more English troops sailing from New York reached Virginia on the
26th of March, and the subsequent arrival of Cornwallis in May
raised the number to seven thousand. The operations of the
contending forces during the spring and summer months, in which
Lafayette commanded the Americans, do not concern our subject.
Early in August, Cornwallis, acting under orders from Clinton,
withdrew his troops into the peninsula between the York and James
rivers, and occupied Yorktown.
Washington and Rochambeau had met on the 21st of May, and
decided that the situation demanded that the effort of the French
West Indian fleet, when it came, should be directed against either
New York or the Chesapeake. This was the tenor of the despatch
found by De Grasse at Cap Français,[57] and meantime the allied
generals drew their troops toward New York, where they would be on
hand for the furtherance of one object, and nearer the second if they
had to make for it.
In either case the result, in the opinion both of Washington and of
the French government, depended upon superior sea power; but
Rochambeau had privately notified the admiral that his own
preference was for the Chesapeake as the scene of the intended
operations, and moreover the French government had declined to
furnish the means for a formal siege of New York.[58] The enterprise
therefore assumed the form of an extensive military combination,
dependent upon ease and rapidity of movement, and upon blinding
the eyes of the enemy to the real objective,—purposes to which the
peculiar qualities of a navy admirably lent themselves. The shorter
distance to be traversed, the greater depth of water and easier
pilotage of the Chesapeake, were further reasons which would
commend the scheme to the judgment of a seaman; and De Grasse
readily accepted it, without making difficulties or demanding
modifications which would have involved discussion and delay.
Having made his decision, the French admiral acted with great
good judgment, promptitude, and vigor. The same frigate that
brought despatches from Washington was sent back, so that by
August 15 the allied generals knew of the intended coming of the
fleet. Thirty-five hundred soldiers were spared by the governor of
Cap Français, upon the condition of a Spanish squadron anchoring at
the place, which De Grasse procured. He also raised from the
governor of Havana the money urgently needed by the Americans;
and finally, instead of weakening his force by sending convoys to
France, as the court had wished, he took every available ship to the
Chesapeake. To conceal his coming as long as possible, he passed
through the Bahama Channel, as a less frequented route, and on the
30th of August anchored in Lynnhaven Bay, just within the capes of
the Chesapeake, with twenty-eight ships-of-the-line. Three days
before, August 27, the French squadron at Newport, eight ships-of-
the-line with four frigates and eighteen transports under M. de
Barras, sailed for the rendezvous; making, however, a wide circuit
out to sea to avoid the English. This course was the more necessary
as the French siege-artillery was with it. The troops under
Washington and Rochambeau[59] had crossed the Hudson on the
24th of August, moving toward the head of Chesapeake Bay. Thus
the different armed forces, both land and sea, were converging
toward their objective, Cornwallis.
The English were unfortunate in all directions. Rodney, learning of
De Grasse’s departure, sent fourteen ships-of-the-line under Admiral
Hood to North America, and himself sailed for England in August, on
account of ill health. Hood, going by the direct route, reached the
Chesapeake three days before De Grasse, looked into the bay, and
finding it empty went on to New York. There he met five ships-of-
the-line under Admiral Graves, who, being senior officer, took
command of the whole force and sailed on the 31st of August for the
Chesapeake, hoping to intercept De Barras before he could join De
Grasse. It was not till two days later that Sir Henry Clinton was
persuaded that the allied armies had gone against Cornwallis, and
had too far the start to be overtaken.

Admiral Graves was painfully surprised, on making the


Chesapeake, to find anchored there a fleet which from its numbers
could only be an enemy’s. Nevertheless, he stood in to meet it, and as
De Grasse got under way, allowing his ships to be counted, the sense
of numerical inferiority—nineteen to twenty-four—did not deter the
English admiral from attacking. The clumsiness of his method,
however, betrayed his gallantry; many of his ships were roughly
handled, without any advantage being gained.[60] De Grasse,
expecting De Barras, remained outside five days, keeping the English
fleet in play without coming to action; then returning to port he
found De Barras safely at anchor. Graves went back to New York,
and with him disappeared the last hope of succor that was to gladden
Cornwallis’s eyes. The siege was steadily endured, but the control of
the sea made only one issue possible, and the English forces were
surrendered October 19, 1781. With this disaster the hope of
subduing the colonies died in England. The conflict flickered through
a year longer, but no serious operations were undertaken.
... The defeat of Graves and subsequent surrender of Cornwallis
did not end the naval operations in the western hemisphere. On the
contrary, one of the most interesting tactical feats and the most
brilliant victory of the whole war were yet to grace the English flag in
the West Indies; but with the events at Yorktown the patriotic
interest for Americans closes. Before quitting that struggle for
independence, it must again be affirmed that its successful ending, at
least at so early a date, was due to the control of the sea,—to sea
power in the hands of the French, and its improper distribution by
the English authorities. This assertion may be safely rested on the
authority of the one man who, above all others, thoroughly knew the
resources of the country, the temper of the people, the difficulties of
the struggle, and whose name is still the highest warrant for sound,
quiet, unfluttered good sense and patriotism.
The keynote to all Washington’s utterances is set in the
“Memorandum for concerting a plan of operations with the French
army,” dated July 15, 1780, and sent by the hands of Lafayette:
“The Marquis de Lafayette will be pleased to communicate the
following general ideas to Count de Rochambeau and the Chevalier
de Ternay, as the sentiments of the underwritten:
“I. In any operation, and under all circumstances, a decisive
naval superiority is to be considered as a fundamental principle,
and the basis upon which every hope of success must ultimately
depend.”
This, however, though the most formal and decisive expression of
Washington’s views, is but one among many others equally distinct.
21. The French Navy Demoralized by the
Revolution[61]

... The seamen and the navy of France were swept away by the
same current of thought and feeling which was carrying before it the
whole nation; and the government, tossed to and fro by every wave of
popular emotion, was at once too, weak and too ignorant of the
needs of the service to repress principles and to amend defects which
were fatal to its healthy life.
It is particularly instructive to dwell upon this phase of the
revolutionary convulsions of France, because the result in this
comparatively small, but still most important, part of the body politic
was so different from that which was found elsewhere. Whatever the
mistakes, the violence, the excesses of every kind, into which this
popular rising was betrayed, they were symptomatic of strength, not
of weakness,—deplorable accompaniments of a movement which,
with all its drawbacks, was marked by overwhelming force.
It was the inability to realize the might in this outburst of popular
feeling, long pent up, that caused the mistaken forecasts of many
statesmen of the day; who judged of the power and reach of the
movement by indications—such as the finances, the condition of the
army, the quality of the known leaders—ordinarily fairly accurate
tests of a country’s endurance, but which utterly misled those who
looked to them only and did not take into account the mighty
impulse of a whole nation stirred to its depths. Why, then, was the
result so different in the navy? Why was it so weak, not merely nor
chiefly in quantity, but in quality? and that, too, in days so nearly
succeeding the prosperous naval era of Louis XVI. Why should the
same throe which brought forth the magnificent armies of Napoleon
have caused the utter weakness of the sister service, not only amid
the disorders of the Republic, but also under the powerful
organization of the Empire?
The immediate reason was that, to a service of a very special
character, involving special exigencies, calling for special aptitudes,
and consequently demanding special knowledge of its requirements
in order to deal wisely with it, were applied the theories of men
wholly ignorant of those requirements,—men who did not even
believe that they existed. Entirely without experimental knowledge,
or any other kind of knowledge, of the conditions of sea life, they
were unable to realize the obstacles to those processes by which they
would build up their navy, and according to which they proposed to
handle it. This was true not only of the wild experiments of the early
days of the Republic; the reproach may fairly be addressed to the
great emperor himself, that he had scarcely any appreciation of the
factors conditioning efficiency at sea; nor did he seemingly ever
reach any such sense of them as would enable him to understand
why the French navy failed. “Disdaining,” says Jean Bon Saint-
André, the Revolutionary commissioner whose influence on naval
organization was unbounded, “disdaining, through calculation and
reflection, skillful evolutions, perhaps our seamen will think it more
fitting and useful to try those boarding actions in which the
Frenchman was always conqueror, and thus astonish Europe by new
prodigies of valor.”[62] “Courage and audacity,” says Captain
Chevalier, “had become in his eyes the only qualities necessary to our
officers.” “The English,” said Napoleon, “will become very small
when France shall have two or three admirals willing to die.”[63] So
commented, with pathetic yet submissive irony, the ill-fated admiral,
Villeneuve, upon whom fell the weight of the emperor’s discontent
with his navy: “Since his Majesty thinks that nothing but audacity
and resolve are needed to succeed in the naval officer’s calling, I shall
leave nothing to be desired.”[64]
... In truth men’s understandings, as well as their morale and
beliefs, were in a chaotic state. In the navy, as in society, the morale
suffered first. Insubordination and mutiny, insult and murder,
preceded the blundering measures which in the end destroyed the
fine personnel that the monarchy bequeathed to the French republic.
This insubordination broke out very soon after the affairs of the
Bastille and the forcing of the palace at Versailles; that is, very soon
after the powerlessness of the executive was felt. Singularly, yet
appropriately, the first victim was the most distinguished flag-officer
of the French navy.[65]
During the latter half of 1789 disturbances occurred in all the
seaport towns; in Havre, in Cherbourg, in Brest, in Rochefort, in
Toulon. Everywhere the town authorities meddled with the concerns
of the navy yards and of the fleet, discontented seamen and soldiers,
idle or punished, rushed to the town halls with complaints against
their officers. The latter, receiving no support from Paris, yielded
continually, and things naturally went from bad to worse.

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