which numerical method for solving $f(x) = 0$ if the solution is unique?

69 Views Asked by At

Which numerical method for solving $f(x) = 0$ if the solution of the nonlinear equation is unique? We only assume that function $f$ is continuous.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

You actually need a bit more than just uniqueness of the solution of $f(x) = 0$ for this to be guaranteed to work: if $f$ takes both positive and negative values, you can search for $x_1$ and $x_2$ such that $f(x_1)$ and $f(x_2)$ have opposite signs, then use bisection.

On the other hand, if all you know is that $f$ is continuous and the solution to $f(x) = 0$ is unique, then it's hopeless: there is no way for your numerical method to detect whether the solution is in a given interval.