On Mon, Apr 04, 2011 at 08:50:25AM +0100, Rupert Swarbrick wrote:
> > We haven't covered this in our course yet. I was hoping their was a
> > function available like to the other students just to return the
> > points... I'll run this by my teacher anyway.
> >
>
> Unless the calculators the other students are using do this by working
> out a derivative "behind-the-scenes", what they probably do is the
> following: Take an evenly spaced list of numbers across the interval in
> which you're interested and evaluate the function at each of them. Then
> you have an idea of where it's largest. If you want more precision, you
> can then choose points closer together near where you think the
> minima/maxima are. Obviously this gets done magically behind the scenes,
> but it basically works in the same way as drawing a graph and finding
> the minima/maxima by eye.
So if I were to use differentiation would I obtain the same accuracy?
This is how I did it:
f(x):=my function;
float(solve(diff(f(x),x)));
float(f(%));
The answer was supposed to be in decimal btw.
> But anyway, if you ask your teacher about this, try and find out exactly
> what method he or she wants you to understand. If he or she just wants
> you to get a numerical approximation to the answer, maybe so you get a
> feel for a certain function, you could just look at the graph and do it
> by eye!
Yes, though I'm blind so I can't look at the graph:) I presume what I
said above with differentiation would give me just as accurate if not
more accurate answer than looking at the graph?
Using differentiation (like I describe above), would I receive an answer
as accurate as the other students with their cas calculators? I know
they get decimal values...
Thanks,
Dan