L03
Tuesday, March 15, 2022 09:29 AM
THE FALSE-POSITION METHOD
Although bisection is a perfectly
valid technique for determining
roots, Sometimes its “brute-
force” approach is relatively
inefficient.
False position is an alternative
based on a graphical insight. A
shortcoming of the bisection
method is that, in dividing the
interval from xl to xu into equal
halves, no account is taken of
the magnitudes of f(xl) and f(xu).
For example, if f(xl) is much
closer to zero than f(xu), it is
likely that the root is closer to xl
than to xu (Fig. 5.12).
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An alternative method that
exploits this graphical insight is
to join f(xl) and f(xu) by a
straight line.
The intersection of this line with
the x axis represents an
improved estimate of the root.
The fact that the replacement of
the curve by a straight line gives
a “false position” of the root is
the origin of the name, method of
false position, or in Latin, Regula
falsi. It is also called the linear
interpolation method.
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interpolation method.
Using similar triangles (See this
Fig), the intersection of the
straight line with the x axis can
be estimated as
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This is the false-position formula.
The value of xr computed.. then
replaces whichever of the two initial
guesses, xl or xu, yields a function
value with the same sign as f(xr).
In this way, the values of xl and xu
always bracket the true root. The
process is repeated until the root is
estimated adequately. The algorithm
is identical to the one for bisection
with the exception that is used for
step 2.
In addition, the same stopping
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In addition, the same stopping
criterion is used to terminate the
computation
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