Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-year-1-of-the-computer-science-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/discrete-mathematics-continuous-mathematics-and-probability-resit/5/a/iii/solution

A small difference between successive secant method iterates alone does not certify a small absolute error. Instead use a residual root error bound. On ,
and , so there is a unique root . For an iterate , the mean value theorem gives
Therefore stop when and . This guarantees the desired absolute error in exact arithmetic; the evaluated residual of a root equation should include an allowance for its much smaller roundoff error. A safeguarded implementation can retain the bracket and use bisection if a proposed secant method step leaves it.

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