Lesson plan
Bisection method
[[Image:Bisection method.svg|250px|thumb|A few steps of the bisection method applied over the starting range [a 1 ;b 1 ]. The bigger red dot is the root of the function. In mathematics, the bisection method is a root-finding method that applies to any continuous function for which one knows two values with opposite signs. The method consists of repeatedly bisecting the interval defined by these values, then selecting the subinterval in which the function changes sign, which therefore must contain a root. It is a very simple and robust method, but it is also relatively slow. Because of this, it is often used to obtain a rough approximation to a solution which is then used as a starting point for more rapidly converging methods. The method is also called the interval halving method, the binary search method, or the dichotomy method. For polynomials, more elaborate methods exist for testing the existence of a root in an interval (Descartes' rule of signs, Sturm's theorem, Budan's theorem). They allow extending the bisection method into efficient algorithms for finding all real roots of a polynomial; see Real-root isolation.
Article summary
[[Image:Bisection method.svg|250px|thumb|A few steps of the bisection method applied over the starting range [a 1 ;b 1 ]. The bigger red dot is the root of the function. In mathematics, the bisection method is a root-finding method that applies to any continuous function for which one knows two values with opposite signs. The method consists of repeatedly bisecting the interval defined by these values, then selecting the subinterval in which the function changes sign, which therefore must contain a root. It is a very simple and robust method, but it is also relatively slow. Because of this, it is often used to obtain a rough approximation to a solution which is then used as a starting point for more rapidly converging methods. The method is also called the interval halving method, the binary search method, or the dichotomy method. For polynomials, more elaborate methods exist for testing the existence of a root in an interval (Descartes' rule of signs, Sturm's theorem, Budan's theorem). They allow extending the bisection method into efficient algorithms for finding all real roots of a polynomial; see Real-root isolation.
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