Is there a way to make a complex number in NumPy with the accuracy of a Decimal type?

Question

I'm working in Python with NumPy arrays of complex numbers that extend well past the normal floating point limits of NumPy’s default Complex type (numbers greater than 10^500). I wanted to know if there was some way I could extend NumPy so that it will be able to handle complex numbers with this sort of magnitude. For example, is there a way to make a NumPy complex type that uses functionality from the Decimal module?

I know there are resources available such as mpmath that could probably do what I need. However, it is a requirement of my project that I use NumPy.

For anyone that's interested in why I need these enormous numbers, it's because I'm working on a numerical relativity simulation of the early universe.

Answer 1

Depending on your platform, you may have support for complex192 and/or complex256. These are generally not available on Intel platforms under Windows, but they are on some others—if your code is running on Solaris or on a supercomputer cluster, it may support one of these types. On Linux, you may even find them available or you could create your array using dtype=object and then use bigfloat or gmpy2.mpc.

1. complex256 numbers up to 10⁴⁹³² + 10⁴⁹³²j
2. complex192 ditto, but with less precision
3. I have even seen mention of NumPy and complex512...