number crunching

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number crunching

Computing the large-scale processing of numerical data

number crunching

(application, jargon)

Computations of a numerical nature, especially those that make extensive use of floating-point numbers. The only thing Fortrash is good for.

This term is in widespread informal use outside hackerdom and even in mainstream slang, but has additional hackish connotations: namely, that the computations are mindless and involve massive use of brute force. This is not always evil, especially if it involves ray tracing or fractals or some other use that makes pretty pictures, especially if such pictures can be used as wallpaper.

See also crunch.

number crunching

Computers running mathematical, scientific or CAD applications, which perform large amounts of calculations. See number cruncher.

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In A Piece of Pi: Wit-Sharpening, Brain-Bruising, Number Crunching Activities with Pi, students can trace the history of pi, re-create famous experiments, and discover how pi is mysteriously related to other things--like hat sizes and the vertically symmetrical letters of the alphabet.

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Dominic Grieve QC said the number crunching reality of failing to win an outright Conservative majority meant no such Bill, which would replace the Human Rights Act, had been offered.

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It was an instance in which Smith Seemed to transcend the sometimes black and white, number crunching confines of loan origination to become in spirit something of an equity partner.