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gibson:teaching:fall-2013:math445:lab5

Math 445 lab 5: Newton search

Helpful Matlab commands/functions/constructs for this lab: while-end, abs, plot, grid on, for-end, \, contour, norm, and anonymous functions.

Problem 1: Write a newtonsearch1d function that computes a zero of a 1-d function f using the Newton search method, starting from the initial guess x. Use a while loop to terminate the iteration when either $|f(x)| < tolerance$ or when the Newton step is very small: $|dx| < tolerance$, for some suitable choice of $tolerance$.

Use this function to solve the following problems. Check your answers by plugging the answer x back into f and verifying that f(x) is approximately zero.

(a) Find an x for which $x^2 - 8x + 5 = 0$.

(b) Find the cube root of 54. (Hint: devise an equation whose answer is $x = \sqrt[3]{54}$.)

(c) Find an x for which $\sqrt{4-x^2} = x \tan x$.

To find good initial guesses for the Newton search, plot f versus x and estimate where it crosses the x axis.

Problem 2: Write a newtonsearch2d function that finds a zero of a 2-d function f starting from the initial guess x, where both x and f(x) are two-dimensional vectors. Use this to find a zero of the nonlinear 2-d function


f\left(\begin{array}{c} x_1 \\ x_2 \end{array}}\right) = 
\left(\begin{array}{l} x_1^2 + x_2^2 - 7 \\ x_1^{-1} - x_2 \end{array} \right)

Use a contour plot of the norm of $f$ over $x_1, x_2$ to find an initial guess for the search.

Bonus (10 pts): Write a newtonsearchNd function that finds a zero of an N-dimensional function f starting from the initial guess x. Use this to find a zero of the nonlinear 3d function


f\left(\begin{array}{c} x \\ y \\ z \end{array}}\right) = 
\left(\begin{array}{l} 10(y-x) \\ x(28-z) - y \\ xy - 8/3 \; z \end{array} \right)

Use the initial guess $[x,y,z] = [10, 10, 25]$. Verify your answer by applying it to the 3d function. What do you expect to get?

Bonus (10 points): Give a brief explanation for the Newton's Search. Include the answers to the following questions.

- Purpose: What is the Newton's method used for?

- Method: How does it do this? (How is it related to the Taylor Series? Can you explain the equations used in the code?)

gibson/teaching/fall-2013/math445/lab5.txt · Last modified: 2013/10/03 05:42 by gibson