Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/paper-1/19/b/ii/solution

The cobweb plot uses the curve and the diagonal . From a point on the diagonal, a vertical step to the curve computes the next iterate; a horizontal step returns its value to the diagonal.
For , , so . Thus a start below gives a strictly increasing sequence bounded above by . For the inequalities reverse to , giving a strictly decreasing sequence bounded below by . Both types of staircase approach the same intersection.
The bounded monotone sequence theorem proves existence of a limit, and continuity then makes it a nonnegative fixed point. Part (i) gives
This proves the global convergence of a square-root iteration; the graph below illustrates both cases without relying on a finite numerical sample as proof.
Figure 1.
Iteration staircases approaching the positive fixed point from below and from above
. Details.

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