OT: More math
| From: | David Starner <dvdeug@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, April 22, 2003, 15:43 |
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On Wed, Apr 23, 2003 at 12:18:53AM +1000, Tristan McLeay wrote:
> Well, maybe the seem evil just because square roots are pretty evil. How
> does one work out what the square root a non-square is?
Successive division and averaging. Let x be the number you want a square
root of and let y be 1 (or x/2, or any number larger then 0.) Then let
y=((x/y) + (x/(x/y))) / 2. Since the square root of x is irrational if x
isn't a square, and y is rational provided it started that way, y will
never equal the square root of x, but it will come arbitarily close.
--
David Starner - dvdeug@email.ro
Ic sæt me on anum leahtrice, ða com heo and bát me!