~ Roots of Equations ~

Bracketing Methods
Chapter 5

Credit: Prof. Lale Yurttas, Chemical Eng., Texas A&M University 1

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 Roots of Equations

• Easy
 b  b 2
 4ac
ax  bx  c  0  x 
2

2a

• But, not easy

ax5  bx 4  cx3  dx 2  ex  f  0  x?

• How about these?

sin x  x  0  x?
cos(10 x)  sin( 3 x)  0  x  ?
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 Graphical Approach
• Make a plot of the Using MATLAB, plot f(x)=sin(10x)+cos(3x)
function f(x) and
observe where it
crosses the x-axis,
i.e. f(x) = 0

• Not very practical

but can be used to
obtain rough
estimates for roots
Two distinct
• These estimates can roots between
be used as initial
x= 4.2 and 4.3
guesses for
numerical methods need to be careful
that we’ll study here.
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Bracketing:
exceptions

Odd and even

number of roots

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 Bisection Method

xu  xl
Relative error estimate: e 100%
Min{xl ; xu }

Termination criteria: e < etol OR Max.Iteration is reached

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 % Bisection Method
% function is available in another file e.g. func1.m
MATLAB code % A sample call: bisection2(@func1, -2, 4, 0.001, 500)

function root = bisection(fx, xl, xu, es, imax);

Bisection
Method if fx(xl)*fx(xu) > 0 % if guesses do not bracket
disp('no bracket')
return
end

for i=1:1:imax
xr=(xu+xl)/2
ea = abs((xu-xl)/xl);

test= fx(xl)*fx(xr);
if test < 0
• Minimize function xu=xr;
end
evaluations in the if test > 0
code. xl=xr;
end
Why? if test == 0
ea=0;
end
• Because they are if ea < es
costly (takes more break;
end
time) 6

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 How Many Iterations will It Take?
• Length of the first Interval Lo= xu- xl
• After 1 iteration L1=Lo/2
• After 2 iterations L2=Lo/4
….. …..
• After k iterations Lk=Lo/2k

• Then we can write:

Lk
 error _ tolerance wher e xr  Min{ xl , xu }
xr
L0
k
 xr * e tol
2
L0  L0 
2 
k
 k  log 2 
xr * e tol  x r * e tol 
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 Bisection Method

Pros Cons

• Easy • Slow
• Always finds a root • Need to find initial
• Number of iterations guesses for xl and xu
required to attain an • No account is taken
absolute error can be of the fact that if f(xl)
computed a priori. is closer to zero, it is
likely that root is
closer to xl .

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 The False-Position Method (Regula-Falsi)

• We can approximate the

solution by doing a
linear interpolation
between f(xu) and f(xl)

• Find xr such that

l(xr)=0, where l(x) is the
linear approximation of
f(x) between xl and xu

• Derive xr using similar

triangles

xl f u  xu f l
xr 
fu  fl
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The False-Position Method
Works well, but not always!
 Here is a pitfall 

Modified False-Position
One way to mitigate the “one-sided”
nature of the false position (i.e. the
pitfall case) is to have the algorithm
pick the smallest bracket (between
the Bisection Method & this one)

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 How to find good initial guesses?
• Start at one end of the region of interest (xa) and evaluate
f(xa), f(xa+Dx), f(xa+2Dx), f(xa+3Dx), ........

• Continue until the sign of the result changes.

If that happens between f(xa+k*Dx) and f(xa+(k+1)*Dx)

then pick xl= xa+k*Dx and xu= xa+(k+1)*Dx

Problem:
if Dx is too small  search is very time consuming
if Dx is too large  could jump over two closely spaced roots

Suggestions:
• Generate random x values and evaluate f(x) each time until you find two values that
satisfy f(x1)*f(x2) < 0
• Know the application and plot the function to see the location of the roots, and pick xl
and xu accordingly to start the iterations.
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