From the original problem:
Find an approximation to $\sqrt{5}$ correct to an exactitude of $10^{-10}$ using the bisection algorithm.
In which I have a function in Mathematica to do the calculations in which the function $f(x)$, $a$ and $b$ (from the interval $[a, b]$ where $f(a)$ and $f(b)$ have opposite signs), the tolerance and the number of iterations.
I managed to determine that, if $\sqrt{5}$ is a possible root of the function then $f(x)$ can be written as:
$$ f(x) = x - \sqrt{5} = x^2 - 5 = 0 $$
As for the interval, I used $[a, b] = [2, 3]$ as:
$$ f(2) = 2^2 - 5 = -1 \\ f(3) = 3^2 - 5 = 4 $$
Then it is given that the tolerance is $10^{-10}$ and using $20$ iterations (Is there a way to calculate it?), I obtained a result of $1.36511$ after $13$ iterations.
Now I am trying to:
Obtain the same aproximation with the same exactitude in at least half the number of iterations (Using another method).
These methods would be either:
- Fixed Point Method
- Newton's Method
- Secant Method
- False Position Method
But I don't fully understand the problem as the other methods only accept one point ($a$) instead of two and when I enter those into the algorithm, I get different results.
For example, using Newton's Method, I get $2.23607$ in only $6$ interations which seems to be a better result but from the questions is seems that I am suppose to be getting the same result from the Bisection methos.
How do I proceed?