How to solve this inequality?



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   Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:54:08 -0800
   From: VicTT <victhetraitor at yahoo.com>
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   I'll keep this short in the interest of preserving your time:
   I'm trying to find min(k) such that, given integers: x,r and rational epsilon, abs(x^(p/(2^k)-x^(1/r))<epsilon.
   Then, given integers: x,r,min(k) and rational epsilon, find p in the above inequality.
   How would I do this in Maxima? (first step is, I assume, rewriting this as an equality *somehow*)
   Also, if anyone knows any 3rd party add-ons that could solve this, I'd appreciate the contribution. I'm missing something, I just can't tell what.
   (This is neither homework, nor a task I've devoted less than 1 hour towards achieving.)

   Thank you in advance,
   Pirvu Paul Daniel

If I understand correctly, you are attempting to approximate 1/r by
dyadic rationals (p/2^k).  Let's write

1/r = sum(p[i]/2^i,i,0,inf);

as a binary expansion (each digit p[i] is a 0 or 1).

Then, if you define

p_k = sum(p[k-i]*2^i,i,0,k);

you see

0 >= 1/r - p_k/2^k >= 1/2^k

and there are no other dyadic rationals of the form p/2^k that are
closer to 1/r and less than 1/r; only (1+p_k)/2^k might be closer (but
it will be larger than 1/r). This gives you an effective algorithm to
solve your problem: you will find p and k simultaneously.

Other folks have shown how to translate your epsilon into a bound for
the above inequality.

HTH
Leo