Root Approximation

Sometimes we want to find approximate roots or an equation $f(x)=0$ of a function $f$ that are difficult or impossible to solve analytically.

Bisection Method

Let's say $f$ is a continuous function on the interval $[a,b]$ and that $f(a)$ and $f(b)$ have opposite sign. Then the Intermediate Value Theorem implies there is some $p\in (a,b)$ for which $f(p)=0.$ We can approximate this $p$ by repeatedly halving subintervals of $(a,b)$ containing $p.$ More iterations will lead to an approximation with less error.

Theorem: Suppose that $f\in C[a,b]$ and The Bisection Method generates a sequence $\{p_n{\}}_{n=1}^{\mathrm{\infty }}$ approximating a zero $p$ of $f$ with

$$|p_n-p|\le \frac{b-a}{2^n},n\ge 1.$$

Here's an algorithm for performing this.

// a and b are the initial interval bounds; TOL is the error tolerance, and N_0 is
// maximum iterations to perform.
// returns an x value within TOL of a root or raises an exception on failure
float approximateRootByBisection(float a, float b, float TOL, int N_0, function f) {
    float a1 = a;
    float b1 = b;
    int i = 1;

    float FA = f(a1);

    while(i <= N_0) {
        //p is the midpoint of the current subinterval
        float p = a1 + (b1 - a1) / 2;
        float FP = f(p);
        if (FP == 0 || (b1 - a1) / 2 < TOL)
            return p;
        i = i + 1;
        if (FA * FP > 0) {
            //FP has the same sign as FA; the zero is in the second half of the interval
            a1 = p;
            FA = FP;
        } else {
            //FP has the same sign as FB; the zero is in the first half of the interval
            b1 = p;
        }
    }

    raise("Exhausted iterations without being within {TOL} of root.")
}

The bisection method has some limitations:

• Slow convergence (linear rate - error approximately halves each iteration).
• Requires a valid initial interval (bracket)
• Limited to simple, single roots
• Ignores derivative and curvature information
• Can be computationally expensive for high accuracy
• Limited dimensional applicability (single-variable functions)

Newton's Method

Newton's method can be derived using a Taylor polynomial. Consider $f\in C^2[a,b].$ Let $p_0\in [a,b]$ be an approximation of $p$ such that $f^{\prime }(p_0)\ne 0$ and $\Vert p-p_0\Vert$ is "small."

If we take the first Taylor Polynomial of $f(x)$ expanded about $p_0$ and evaluated at $x=p$ we get

$$f(p)=0=f(p_0)+(p-p_0)f^{\prime }(p_0)+\frac{(p-p_0{)}^2}{2}{f}^{″}(\xi (p))$$

where $\xi (p)$ lies between $p$ and $p_0.$ Since we assume $\Vert p-p_0\Vert$ is small, we can assume the $(p-p_0{)}^2$ term is much smaller and discard it to get

$$0\approx f(p_0)+(p-p_0)f^{\prime }(p_0),$$

which can be solved for $p$ to get

$$p\approx p_0-\frac{f(p_0)}{f^{\prime }(p_0)}\equiv p_1.$$

Repeating this process is Newton's method, which generates the sequence $\{p_n{\}}_{n=0}^{\mathrm{\infty }}$ by

$$p_n=p_{n-1}-\frac{f(p_{n-1})}{f^{\prime }(p_{n-1})},n\ge 1.$$

Theorem: Let $f\in C^2[a,b].$ If $p\in (a,b)$ such that $f(p)=0$ and $f^{\prime }(p)\ne 0,$ then there exists a such that Newton's method generates a sequence $\{p_n{\}}_{n=1}^{\mathrm{\infty }}$ converging to $p$ for any initial approximation $p_0\in [p-\delta ,p+\delta ].$

Here's psuedocode:

float approximateRootByNewtownsMethod(float p_0, float TOL, int N_0) {
    int i = 1;

    while (i <= N_0) {
        float p = p_0 - f(p_0)/f'(p_0)
        if (|p - p_0| < TOL) {
            return p;
        }

        i = i + 1;
        p_0 = p;
    }
    
    raise("Exhausted iterations without being within {TOL} of root.")
} 

Newton's method converges more rapidly than Bisection, but requires a good initial approximation. One approach is to use bisection to find an initial approximation, and then Newton's method to refine it.

Newton's method has some limitations:

• Requires a good initial guess.
• Requires derivative existence and ease of computation.
• Fails when derivative is zero.
• Slows down significantly for multiple roots.
• Can oscillate or diverge easily.
• Derivative computation may be costly.