Doubled Roots | Dirk Mittler's Blog

One of the subjects which I had visited in my past, was to write a C++ program that approximates the roots of polynomials, but that needed to deal with ‘Doubled Roots’ in a special way, just because the search algorithm within that program, which searches for the roots, cannot deal with doubled roots. And what I found was, roots cannot only be doubled, but can have multiplicities higher than (2). After not having pondered that programming project from the past, for some time, I now come back to rethink it, and find that it can be given a lecture of sorts, all to itself.

So, this is a link to a work-sheet, in which I try to explain Roots with Multiplicities, maybe to people with limited knowledge in Calculus:

Link to Letter-Sized PDF

Link to EPUB File, for viewing on Mobile Devices

And as those two documents mention, the following is a link to the earlier blog posting, from which readers can download the C++ program, as well as to find instructions on how to compile it, on Linux computers:

Link to Earlier Blog Posting

Hence, the C++ program linked to in the earlier blog posting, needed to make use of the subject, that the two PDF Files describe.

N.B.:

(Updated 5/06/2019, 13h15 … )

Continue reading Some Observations about Roots with Multiplicities.

One of the ideas which I’ve written about often is, that when certain Computer Algebra Software needs to compute the root of an equation, such as of a polynomial, an exact Algebraic solution, which is also referred to as the analytical solution, or symbolic Math, may not be at hand, and that therefore, the software uses numerical approximation, in a way that never churned out the Algebraic solution in the first place. And while it might sound disappointing, often, the numerical solution is what Engineers really need.

But one subject which I haven’t analyzed in-depth before, was, how this art might work. This is a subject which some people may study in University, and I never studied that. I can see that in certain cases, an obvious pathway suggests itself. For example, if somebody knows an interval for (x), and if the polynomial function of (x), that being (y), happens to be positive at one end of the interval, and negative at the other end, then it becomes feasible to keep bisecting the interval, so that if (y) is positive at the point of bisection, its value of (x) replaces the ‘positive’ value of (x) for the interval, while if at that new point, (y) is negative, its value for (x) replaces the ‘negative’ value of (x) for the interval. This can be repeated until the interval has become smaller than some amount, by which the root is allowed to be inaccurate.

But there exist certain cases in which the path forward is not as obvious, such as what one should do, if one was given a polynomial of an even degree, that only has complex roots, yet, if these complex roots nevertheless needed to be found. Granted, in practical terms such a problem may never present itself in the lifetime of the reader. But if it does, I just had lots of idle time, and have contemplated an answer.

(Updated 1/30/2019, 13h00 … )

Continue reading A Hypothetical Algorithm…