UNIT 4 APPROXIMATE ROOTS OF

POLYNOMIAL EQUATIONS
Structure
4.1 Introduction
Objectives
4.2 Some Results on Roots of Polynomial Equations
4.3 Birge-Vieta Method
4.4 Graeffe's Root Squaring Method
4.5 Summary
4.6 Solutions/Anrwers

4.1 INTRODUCTION
- 4

In the last two units we discussed methods for finding approximate roots of the equation
f(x) = 0.In this unit we restrict our attention to polynomial equations. Recall that a
polynomial equation is an equation of the form f(x) = 0 where f(x) is a polynomial in x.
Polynomial equations arise very frequently in all branches of science especially in physical
applications. For example, the stability of electrical or mechanical systems is related to the
real part of one of the complex roots of a certain polynomial equation. Thus there is a need
to find all roots, real and complex, of a polynomial equation. The four iteration methods, we
have discussed so far, applies to polynomial equations also. But you have seen that all those
methods are time consuming. Thus it 1s necessary to find some efficient methods for
obtaining roots of polynomial equations.
The sixteenth century French mathematician Francois Vieta was the pioneer to develop
methods for finding approximate roots of polynomial equations. Later, several other
methods were developed for solving polynomial equations. In this unit we shall discuss two
simple methods : Birge-Vieta's and Graeffe's root squaring methods. To apply these
methods we should have some prior knowledge of location and nature of roots of a
polynomial equation. You are already familiar with some results regarding location and .
nature of roots from the elementary algebra course MTE-04. We shall beg~nthis unit by;--
listing some of the important results about the roots of polynomial equations.

Objectives
After reading this unit you should be able to :
apply the following methods for finding approximate roots of polynomial equations
i) Birge-Vieta method
ii) Graeffe's root squaring method.
list the advantages of the above methods over the methods discussed in the earlier
units.

4.2 SOME RESULTS ON ROOTS OF POLYNOMIAL

EQUATIONS

The main contribution in the study of polynomial equations is due to the French
mathematician Rene Descarte's. The results appeared in the third part of his famous paper
'La geometric' which means 'The geometry'.

Consider a polynomial equation of degree n

p(x) = anxn+ an- ,xn - +...+ a,x+ao
Solutions t)fNon-linearb:quatbns where ao, al,.. . ,a,, are real numbers and a,, # 0. You know that the roots of a polynomial
in m e Varbbk
quation need not be real numbers. it can be complex numbers, that is numbers of the form
z =,a + ib where a and b are rea1,numbers. The following results are basic to the study of
roots of polynomial equations.
Theorem 1:(Fundamental Theorem of Algebra) : Let p(x) be a polynomial of degree n 2 I
g;ven by Eqn.(l). Then p(x) = 0 has at least one root; that is there exists a number a E C
such that p(a) = 0. In fact p(x) has n complex roots which may not be distinct.
Theorem 2 :Let p(x) be a polynomial of degree n and a is a real number. Then
p(x) = (x - dr) qo(x) + . . . (2)
I
for some polynomial qo(x) of degree n - I and some constant numbej ro . qo(x) and ro are
called the quotient polynomial and the remainder respectively.
In particular, if a is a root of the equation p(x9 = 0, then ro = 0: that is ( x - a)divlaes p(x).
Then we get
p(x) = (X - a ) qo(x)
How do we determine qo(x) and ro? We can find them by the method of synthetic,divisionof
a polynomial p(x), Let us now discuss the synthetic division procedure.

Consider the polynomial p(x) as given in Eqn. (1)

p(x)=a,,xn+a,,- , x n - I + . . . + a l x + a o

Dividing p(x) by x - a we get

p(x) =%(XI (X - a)+ ro. . . . (3)
where qo(x) is a polynomial of degree n - I and ro is a constant.

Let qo(x) be represented as

qo(x)= bnxn-I + b n - ,xn-* +...+ b,x+bl -

(Note that for convenience we are denoting the coefficients by bl. . . .,b, instead of
.
b,,. bl. . . . b, - I ). Set b,, = ro. Substituting the expressions for %(XI and ro in Eqn. (3) we
get
p(x)=(~-a)(b,xn-'+bn-Ixn-2+ ...+ b-, x + b l ) + b O . . . . (4)
Now. to find b,,. b,. . . . . b, we simplify the right hand side of Eqn. (4) and compare the
. I
coefficients of x'. i = 0.1. . . . n on both sides. Note that p ( a ) = bo. Comparing the
coefficients we get

Coefficient of xn : a,, = b,,. b,, = a,,

' :a,, - , -- b,, - I - a b,.

1
coefficient of x n - b,, - I = a, - + a b,,

coefficientofxk :r4,=bk-abk+,, bk=~+abk+,

Coeficient of x0 :% = bo - a, bo=ao+abl
 It is easy to perform the calculations if we write the coefficients of p(x) on a line and Approximate Roots of Pokynomial
+ ,
perform the calculations bk = ak + a bk below ak as given in the table below. Equations

Table 1 : Horner's table for synthetic division procedure.

We shall illustrate this procedure with an example.

Example 1 : Divide the polynomial

p(x) = x5 - 6x4 + 8x3 + 8x2 + 4x - 40
by x - 3 by the synthetic division method and find the remainder.
I

I Solution :Here p(x) is a polynomial of degree 5. If as, a4, a3, a2, a,, a. are the coefficients
of p(x), then the Homer's table in this case is

Table 2

Hence the quotient polynomial qo(x) is

qo(x) = x4 - 3x3 - x2 + 5x + 19

and the remainder is ro = bo = 17. Thus we have p(3) = bo = 17

I
Do the following exercises on the same lines.

E l ) Find the quotient and the remainder when 2x3 - 5x2 + 3x - 1 is divided by x - 2.
-
E2) Using synthetic division check whether a. = 3 is a root of the polynomial equation
x4 + x3 - 13x2- x + 12 = 0 and find the quotient polynomial.

Theorem 3 : Suppose that z = a + ib is a root of the polynomial equation p(x) = 0.Then the
conjugate of z, namely 5,= a - ib is also a root of the equation p(x) = 0, i.e. complex roots
occur in pairs.

We denote by p(-x) the polynomial obtained by replacing x by -x in p(x). We next give an

important Theorem due to Rene Descarte.

Theorem 4 :(Descarte's Rule of signs) : A polynomial equation p(x) = 0 cannot have

more positive roots than the number of changes in sign of its coefficients. Similarly p(x) = 0
cannot have more negative roots than the number of changes in sign of the coefficients
of p(-x).

For example, let us consider the polynomial equation

we count the changes in the sign of the coefficients. Going from left to right there are
changes between 1 and -15, between -15 and 7 and between 7 and -1 1. The total number
in one Vatiable

Here there is only one change between 1 and -15 and hence the equation cannot have more
than one negative root.

We now give another theorem which helps us in locating the real roots.

Theorem 5 :Let p(x) = 0 be a polynomial equation of degree n 2 1. Let a and b be two real
numbers with a < b. Suppose further that p(a) + 0 and p(b) # 0.Then,
i) if p(a) and p(b) have opposite signs, the equation p(x) = 0 has an odd number of roots
between a and b.
ii) if p(a) and p(b) have like signs, then p(x) = 0 either has no root or an even number of
roots between a and b.
Note : In this theorem multiplicity of the root is taken into consideration i.e. if a is a root of
multiplicity k it has to be counted k times.

As a corollary of Theorem 5, we have the following results.

Corollary 1 :An equation of odd degree with real coefficients has at least one real root
whose sign is opposite to that of the last term.

Corollary 2 :An equation of even degree whose constant term has the sign opposite to that
of the leading coefficient, has at least two real r q t s one positive and the other negative.

Corollary 3 :The result given in Theorem 5(i) is the generalisation of the Intermediate
value theorem.

The relationship between roots and coefficients of a polynomial equation is given below.

Theorem 6 :Let cr,, aZ,. . . . anbe n roots (n 1 1) of the polynomial equation

Now, you can try to solve some problems using the above theorems.

E3) How many negative roots does the equation 3x7 + x5 + 4x3 + 1Qx - 6 = 0 have? Also
determine the number of positive roots, if any.
E4) Show that the biquadratic equation
p(x) = x4 + x3 - 2x2 + 4x - 24 = 0 has at least two real roots one positive and the other
negative.

In the next section we shall discuss one of the simple methods for solving polynomial
equations.
 4.3 BIRGE-VIETA METHOD
Approximate Roots of Polynomial
Equations I
- the real roots of a ~olynomial
We shall now discuss the Birae-Vieta method for finding . - 1
equation. This method is based on an original method due to two English mathematicians
Birge and Vieta. This method is a modified form of Newton - Raphson method.

Consider now, a polynomial equation of degree n, say

pn(x)=anxn+. . . + a l x +ao=O. . . . (5)
Let xo be an initial approximation to the root a.The Newton-Raphson iterated formula for &
c
improving this approximation is
pn(xl - 1
x =x ------ i=l,2, ... . . .(6)
I - P',,(x, -
To apply this formula we should be able to evaluate both pn(x) and pfn(x,)at any x, . The
most natural way is to evaluate
I I
I P n ( ~ ,=) anx: +an- Ix:- ' + . . . + a2xf + alxI+ a.
pfn(xi)= n anx:- + (n - I) an - I ~ n - 2+ . . +
. 2a2xI + a l
Francois Vieta (1540-1603)

However, this is the most inefficient way of evaluating a polynomial, because of the amount
of computations involved and also due to the possible growth of round off errors. Thus there
is a need to look for some efficient method for evaluating p,(x) and pfn(x).

Let us consider the evaluation of p,(x) and,pfn(x)at x0 using Homer's method as discussed
in the previous section.

I We have

where
P,(x) = (x - xo) 4, - + r0 .

q n - I ( ~ ) =bnxn-I + b n - 2 ~ r- 2 +.. . + b 2 x + b I
and bo = pn(xo) = rO . . . (8)
We have already discussed in the previous section how to find bi, i = 1,2, . . ., n.
I
Next we shall find the derivative pfn(xO)using Homer's method. We divide
I
q n - 1 ( ~by
) (X- xo) using Homer's method. That is, we write

Comparing the coefficients, we get ci as given in the following table

Table 3 . . .

As observed in Sec. 1, we have

C, = q,, - ,(xO).
Now, from Eqns. (7) and (8), we have
p,(x) = (x - x0) qn - 1 6 ) + pn(xo).
Solutions of Non-linear Equations Differentiating both sides of Eqn. (10) w.r.t. x, we get
in one Variable
P'"(x> = 4, - l(x) + (x - x-,J 4', - I(x). . . . (1 1)
Putting x = xo in Eqn. (1 I), we get

pt,(xo) = e,-
Comparing (9) and (12), we get
P',,(x~) = q,, - 1 ( ~ ( =
$ c1
Hence the Newton-Raphson method (Eqn. (6)) simplies to

We surnmarise the evaluation of bi and ci in the following table.

Table 4

Let us consider an example.

Example 2 : Evaluate p'(3) for the polynomial

Solution :Here the coefficients are a. = -40, a l = 4, a;! = 8, a3 = 8, a4 = -6 and a5 = 1. To

compute bo, we form the following table.

Table 5
-6 8 8 4 4 0

Therefore p' (3) = 25

To get some practice, why don't you try the following exercises.

E5) Using synthetic division, show that 2 is a simple root of the equation
p(x) = x4 - 2x3 - 7x2 + 8x + 12 = 0.
E6) Evaluate p (0.5) and p'(0.5) for
p(x) = -8x5 + 7x4 - 6x3 + 5x2 - 4x + 3

Now we shall illustrate why this method is more efficient than the direct method. Let us
consider an example. Suppose we want to evaluate the polynomial
p(x) = -8x5 + 7x4 - 6x3 + 5x2 - 4x + 3
for any given x.
 When we evaluate by direct method, we compute each power of x by multiplying with x the Approxirmite Roots of Polynomial
preceding power of x as Equations

'x3 = x(x2), x4 = x(x3) etc.

Thus each term cxk takes two multiplications for k > 1. Then. the total number of
multiplications involved in the evaluation of p(x) is 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 9.

When we use Homer's method the total number of multiplications is 5. The number of
additions in both cases are the same. This shows that less computation is involved while
using Homer's method and thereby reduces the error in computation.

, Let us now solve some problems using Birge-Vieta method.

1

Example 3 : Use Birge-Vieta method to find all the positive real roots, rounded off to three
decimal places, of the equation
xu+7x3+24x2+x- 1 5 = 0

I Stop the iteration whenever I xi + - xi I <0.W1

Solution : W{ first note that the given equation
b4(x) = x4+ 7x3 + 24x2+ x - 15 = 0

is of degree 4. Therefore, by Theorem 1, this equation has 4 roots. Since there is only one
change of sign in the coefficients of this equation, Descarte's rule of signs (see Theotem 4),
states that the equation can have at most one positive real root.
I Now let us examine whether the equation has a positive real root.
i Since p4(0) = - 15 and p4( 1) = 19, by Intermediate value theorem, the equation has a root
lying in 10, l[.

We take xo = 0.5 as the initial approximation to the root. The first iteration is given by

Now we evaluate p4 (0.5) and p'4 (0.5) using Homer's method. The results are given in the
following table.

Table 6

-7 5625
Therefore xl = 0.5 - = 0.7459
30.75

The second iteration is given by

Solutions of Non-linear Equations Using synthetic division, we form the following table of values
in one Variable
Table 7
1 7 24 1 -15

Therefore x2 = 0.7459 - -
2'3 32 - 0.6998
50.1469

Third iteration is given by

Table 8
7 24 1 -15
0.6998 0.6998 5.388 1 20.5649 1 5.0905

For the fourth iteration we have

~~(0.6978)
X =x -
4 3 ptn(O.6978)
Table 9

Since x3 and x4 are the same. we get I x4 - xj 1 < 0.0001 and therefore we stop the iteration
here. Hence the approximate value of the root rounded off to three decimal places is 0.698.

Next we shall illustrate how Birge-Vieta's method helps us to find all real roots of a
polynomial equation.

Consider Eqn. (4)

If a is a root of the equation p(x) = 0, then p(x) is exactly divisible by x - a, that is, bo = 0.
In finding the approximations to the root by the Birge-Vieta method, we find that bo
approaches zero (bo + 0)as x, approaches a (xi + a).Hence. if xn is taken as the final
approximation to the root satisfying the criterion ( xn - xn - I 1 < E, then to this
approximation, the required quotient is
q n - 1 ( ~=) bnxn-I + b n - I x n - 2+ . . . + b,
 where b'is are obtained by using xn and the Homer's method. This polynomial is called the Approximate Roots of Polynomial
deflated polynomial or reduced polynomial. The next root is now obtained using qn - ,(x) Equations

and not p,(x). Continuing this process, we can successively reduce the degree of the
polynomial and find one real root at a time.

Let us consider an example.

Example 4 :Find all the roots of the polynomial equation p3(x) = x3 + x - 3 = 0 rounded off
,
to three decimal places. Stop the iteration whenever 1 xi - xi 1 < 0.0001.
+

Solution : The equation p3(x) = 0 has three roots. Since there is only one change in the sign
of the coefficients, by Descarts' rule of signs the equation can have at most one positive real
root. The equation has no negative real root since p3(-X) = 0 has no change of sign of
coefficients. Since p3(x) = 0 is of odd degree it has at least one real root. Hence the given
equation x3 + x - 3 = 0 has one positive real root and a complex pair. Since p(1) = -1 and
p(2) = 7, by intermediate value theorem the equation has a real root lying in the interval
]1,2[. Let us find the real root using Birge-Vieta Method. Let the initial approximation
be 1.1.

First iteration

Table 10

Therefore x, = 1.1 - -- = 1.22289

4.63

Similarly, we obtain
x2= 1.21347

Since I x2 - x3 I < 0.0001, we stop the iteration here. Hence the required value of the root is
1.213, rounded off tb three decimal places. Next let us obtain the deflated polynomial of
p3(x). To.get the deflated polynomial, we have to find the polynomial q2(x) by using the
final approximation x3 = 1.213 (see Table 11).

Table 11

3 )- 0.0022. That is, the magnitude of the error in satisfying p3(x3)= 0 is

Note that ~ ~ ( 1 . 2 1=
0.0022.

This is a quadratic equation and its roots are given by

-1.213 f d(1.213)~- 4 x 2.4714
X =
2
- -1.213+ 2.9009 i
2
Solutions of Non-linear Equations Hence the three roots of the equation rounded off to three decimal places are 1.213,0.6065
in one Variable, + 1.4505 i and -0.6065 - 1.4505 i.
Remark :We now know that we can determine all the real roots of a polynomial equation
using deflated polynomials. This procedure reduces the amount of computations also. But
this method has certain limitations. The computations using deflated polynomials can cause
unexpected errors. If the roots are determined only approximately, the coefficients of the
deflated polynomials will contain some errors due to rounding off. Therefore we can expect
loss of accuracy in the remaining roots. There are some ways of minimizing this error. We
shall not be going into the details of these refinements.
Before going into the next section, you can try these exercises.
-.

E7) Fihd an approximation to one of the roots of the equation

using Birge-Vieta method starting with the initial approximation xo = -2. Stop the
iteration whenever 1 xi + , - xi 1 < 0.4 x
E8) Find all the roots of the equation x3 - 2x - 5 = 0 using Birge-Vieta method.
E9) Find the real root rounded off to two decimal places of the equation
x4 - 4x3 - 3x + 23 = 0 lying in the interval ]2,3[ by Birge-Vieta method.

4.4 GRAEFFE'S ROOT SQUARING METHOD

In the last section we have discussed a method for finding real roots of polynomial
equations. Here we shall discuss a direct method for solving polynomial equations. This
method was developed independently by three mathematicians Dandelin, Lobachevsky and
Graeffe. But Graeffe's name is usually associated with this method. The advantage of this
method is that it finds all roots of a polynomial equation simultaneously; the roots may be
real and distinct, real and equal (multiple) or complex roots.

The underlying idea of the method is based on the following fact :,Suppose PI, PZ, . . . , Pn
ate the n real and distinct roots of a polynomial equation of degree n such that they are
widely separated, that is,
I PI I >>I P21 >> I P31 >>...>>I Pnl
where >> stands for 'much greater than'. Then we can obtain the roots approximately from
the coefficients of the polynomial equation as follows :
Let the polynomial equation whose roots are P,, P2, . . . , Pn be

Using the relations between the roots and the coefficients of the polynomial as given in Sec.
4.2, we get
1
Since
-
I PI I >> I P2 I >> I P3 I >; . . . >> I Pn 1, we have from ( I 4) the a p p i l n a t i o n s Approximate Roots of Polynomial
Equations

4
These approximations can be simpfified as

J
So the problem now is to find from the given polynomial equation, a polynomial equation
whose roots are widely separated. This can be done by the method which we shall describe
now.

In the present course we shall discuss the application of the method to a polynomial
equation whose roots are real and distinct.

Let a t , a 2 , . . . ,a, be the n real and distinct roots of the polynomial equation of degree n
given by

where ao, a t , a2, . . . ,an - I , a, are real numbers and an # 0. We rewrite Eqn. (17) by
collecting all even terms on one side and all odd terms on the other side, i.e.

Squaring both sides of Eqn. ( 18), we get

Now we expand both the right and left hand sides and simplify by collecting the
coefficitnts. We get
Solutions of Nun-linear Equations Putting x' = -y in Eqn. (19), we,obtain a new equation given by
in one Variable

where
b0=$

2
bn = an

The following table helps us to compute the coefficients bo, b,, . . . ,bn of Eqn. (20) directly
from Eqn. ( 17).

Table 12
a~ a3... "n

4 a: 4 af at
o -2a,,a2 -2ala3 -2a2a4 o
o o %a4 -2a,a5 o '
0 0 0 -2aoa6 0

"0 bl b2 b,. . . b"

To form Table 12 we first write the coefficients ao, al , a2. . . . ,an as the first row. Then we
form (n + I ) columns as follows.

The terms in each column alternate in sign starting with a positive sign. The first term in
each column is the square of the coefficients ak, k = 0, 1 , 2, . . . , n. The second term in each
column is twice the product of the nearest-neighbour1ng coefficients. if there are any, with
negative sign: otherwise put it as zero. ~ 0 7 e x a m ~ lthe
e . second term in theflrst column is
zero and second term in the second colu~nnis -?ao aT Likewise the second term of the
,
(k + I )th column is -?ah - ah I.The third term in the (k + 1)th column is twice the
,,
+

product of the next neighbouring coefficients ak-,and ak + if there are any, otherwise put
it as zero. This procedure is continued until there are no coefficients available to form'the
cross products. Then we add all the terms in each column. The sum gives the coefficients bh
for k = 0. I , 2. . . . , n which are listed as the last term in each column. Since the substitution
x' = -y is used, it is easy to see that if aI, a2,. . . , anare the n roots of Eqn. (17). then
2,a2,. . . , c( are the roots of Eqn. (20).
- a;

Thus, starting with a given polynomial equation, we obtained another polynomial equation
whose roots are the squares of the roots of the original equation with negative sign.

We repeat the procedure for Eqn. (20) and obtain another equation

whose roots are the squares of the roots of Eqn. (20) with a negative sign i.e., they are fourth
powers of the roots of the original equation with a negative sign. Let this procedure be
repeated n times.Then, we obtain an equation
.L
 Approximate Roots of Polynomial
whose roots yl, y2, .... *I, are given by Equations

Now, since all the roots of Eqn. (17) are real and distinct, we have
I a l I > I a 2 1 > ........> I a n /
Hence I yl 1 >> I y2.1 >> . . . . . . . . . >> 1 yn I.

We conclude that if the roots of Eqn. (17) are distinct then for large m, the 2"'th powers of
the roots are widely separated.

We stop this s q u h n g process when the cross product terms become negligible in
comparison to square terms. .

Since roots of Eqn. (2 1) are widely separated we calculate the absolute values of the roots '
yl, y2, .... "1, using Eqn. ( 16). We have

The magnitude of the roots of the original equation are therefore given by

This gives the magnitudes of the roots. To determine the sign of the roots, we substitute
these approximations-inthe original equation and verify whether positive or negative value
satisfies it.

We shall now illustrate this method with an example.

Example 5 :Find all the roots of the cubic equation x3 - 15x2+ 62x - 72 = 0 by Graeffe's
method using three squarings.

Solution :Let P3(x) = x3 - 15x2+ 62x - 72 = 0.

The equation has no negative real roots. Let us now apply the root squaring method
successively. The we get the following results :
Solutions of Non-linear Equations First Squaring
in one Variable
Table 13

Therefore the new equation is

x 3 + 101x2+ 1684x+5184=0.

Applying the squaring method to the new equation we get the lollowing results.

Second Squaring

Table 14

Thus the new equation is

For the ~hird\quaring. we have the following results.

Third Squaring

Table 15
--- - --
26873856 1788688 6833 1

[ x 2 0 4 I4 x 10" 3.1994048 x 10'' 46689889 1

Hence the new equation is

After three squarings. the roots y l , y, and y., of this equation are given by
 %, a3of the original equation are
Hence, the roots a,, ~ ~ ~ r o i i r nRoots
n t e of Polynomial
Equations

Since the equation has no negative real roots, all the roots are positive. Hence the rooqs can
be taken as 9.0017,4.001 1 and 1.9990. If the approximations are rounded to 2 decimal
places, we have the roots as 9.4 and 2. Alternately, we can substitute the approximate roots
in the given equation and find their sign.

You can try these exercises now.

E10) Determine all roots of the following equations by Graeffe's root squaring method.
using three squarings.

ii) x3-2x2-5~+6=0

We have seen that Graeffe's root squaring method obtains all real roots simultaneously.
There is considerable saving in time also. The niethod can be extended to find multiple and
complex roots also. However the method is not efficient to find these roots. We shall not
discuss these extensions.
We shall end this block by summarising what we have covered in this unit.

4.5 SUMMARY

In this unit we have

discussed the following methods for finding approximate roots of polynomial
equations
i) Birge-Vieta method
ii) Graeffe's root squaring method
mentioned the advantages and disadvantages of the above methods.

El? Let p(x) = 2x3 - 5x2 + 3x - 1

Here a3 = 2, a2 =-%a, = 3, a. = -1 and a = 2. The Homer's table in this case is as
follows :

Hence the quotient polynomial is qo(x) = 2x2 - x + I and the remainder is ro = 1.

Solutions of Non-linear Equations E2) Form the H o m r ' s table in this case. From the table you can see that the last term in
in one Variable the 3rd row is zero. Hence 3 is a root of the equation. The quotient polynomial is
x3+4x2-x-4.
E3) The equation p(x) = 3x7 + x5 + 4x3 $ lox - 6 = 0 has no negative real root, since there
are no changes in the sign of cdefficients of p(-x).
Since there is one change in the sign of coefficients of p(x) the equation can have at
most one positive real root. Since the equation is of odd degree it has at least one real
root which is positive.
Since, f(0) = -6 < 0
f(1) = 12 > 0.
the equation has a positive root lying between 0 and 1 (by IV theorem).
E4) The given equation p(x) = x4 + x3 - 2x2 + 4x - 24 = 0 is of degree 4 i.e. even degree.
The sign of the constant term is negative whereas the sign of the leading coefficient is
positive. Therefore by corollary 2, the equation has two real roots, one positive and the
other negative.

E5) The Homer's table is as follows :

Since p(2) = 0 and p' (2) = -12,2 is a simple root.

E6) p(0.5) = 1.6875, p'(0.5) = -3.875
E7) The given equation is p(x) = 2x4 - 3x2 + 3x - 4 = 0.
The initial approximation is xo = -2. Then the I st iteration is

p(-2) and p' (-2) are given by the following table.

10
Therefore x , = -2 - r-
49
= 1.796

Repeating the procedure to find x2, we have

 Approximate Roots of Polynomial
Therefore x2.= -1.796 - - '742 - 1.7425 Equations
- 32.565
To find x3, we have

.I018
Therefore x3 = -1.7425 +-
28.8770

Since I x3 - xl I < 0.0035 < 0.4 x lop2,we conclude that 1.7390 is the approximate
' root.
E8) Let p(x) = x3 - 2x - 5
Since there is only one change in the sign of the coefficients of p(x), the equation has
at most one real root. The equation has no negative real root since there is no change
in the sign of the coefficients of p(-x). Also

and
p(3)= 1 6 > 0
Therefore aroot lies in ]2,3[. Using xo = 2.5 as an initial approximation to the root,
you can show that 2.0945 is an approximation to the real root.
The deflated polynomial is given by the following table

Therefore we get the deflated polynomial as p2(x) = x2 + 2.0945 x + 2.3869 = 0. The

roots of this equation are given by

=-1.0473+ i 1.1359
Hence the roots are given by 2.0945, -1 .0473 + 1.1359 i, -1 .@I73 - 1.13359 i.

E10) i) The given equation is x3 +6x2 - 36x + 40 = 0

First squaring
bdutions of Non-linear Equations Second squaring
in one Variable
1600

Third squaring

Hence the new equation is

x3 + 1oxx2+ (.05 120 x 1 0 ' ~ ) x + .65536 x = 0.
The roots y,, y2 and y3 of this equation are given by

I
Hence the roots of the original equation are given by

Substituting the computed values in the original equation, we get that the roots
are approximately - 10, 2.18 and 1.83. Therefore the roots are -10, 2 and 2.
ii) Computed values of the roots are 3.014443. 1.991424 and 0.9994937.
iii) Computed values of the roots are 7.017507, -2.974432,0.958 1706.