proposal to rename "interpolate", was: Interpolation function

There is a function "allroots"  that finds roots of
a polynomial. It could be expanded to find roots of
non-polynomials.

It is implausible that one can find ALL roots of arbitrary
equations, so maybe it should be oneroot()?

If there is a program of similar functionality in
other CAS, I suggest the name be similar as well.

Mathematica:
  FindRoot[lhs==rhs, ax, aa] searches for a numerical solution to the equation lhs==rhs, starting 
with x=a.

Maple:  (I don't have a copy handy. Maybe it is called fsolve?)

I prefer find_root, if you are going to rename a function.
I also suggest you LEAVE the name interpolate.

If you want another function to do (say) polynomial interpolation,
it could be a component of a fancier piece of code that
does curve fitting on a set of points. Perhaps producing
a least-squares fit, a spline of some sort, etc.  on request.

RJF


van.Nek@gmx.net wrote:

> Am 10 Dec 2005 um 11:47 hat Robert Dodier geschrieben:
> 
> 
> 
>>there is a function named "interpolate", but its purpose is to find a
>>root of an equation by a numerical method.
>>
>>i propose that "interpolate" be renamed to "solve_numerically",
>>with the eventual goal that the function would be beefed up to
>>use a more powerful method (or a combination of several
>>methods) than it does at present. in the near term, i think
>>just renaming it is helpful.
>>
>>we could also consider having "solve (eq, x), numer" invoke a
>>numerical method such as solve_numerically or something else.
>>
>>at present there doesn't seem to be any other built-in general purpose
>>function to find roots numerically. there are a couple of functions
>>for numerical roots of polynomials.
>>
>>comments?
>>
> 
> 
> Hi Robert,
> 
> yes, the name 'interpolate' is absolutely misleading. So due to that in the past I have 
> overlooked this function.
> I would suggest simply  'fsolve'.
> 
> Volker
> 
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