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Re: FindRoot: Slight variation of usage

  • To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net
  • Subject: [mg1730] Re: [mg1709] FindRoot: Slight variation of usage
  • From: John Fultz <jfultz>
  • Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 00:46:40 -0400

> 	Hi,
> 	I've got a quick question.  I want to use FindRoot to find
> 	the root of a multi-variable function, e.g.
> 	f[x1_,x2_] :=  x2 + Cos[x1]
> 	for a _fixed_ value of the other variables (x2=constant) and
> 	find the root in the (only) remaining variable, x1.  How should
> 	I do this for many different realizations of the other variables?
> 
> 	Thanks,
> 	John
> 
> 	P.S. As an aside, I wrote my own program that combines Newton-
> 	Raphson root finding with the bisection method to guarantee
> 	a root (provided it is bracketed) in the interval.  FindRoot
> 	sometimes returned roots out of my xstart,xend domain.  I am
> 	actually using this program in the above question, but thought
> 	the procedure would be the same.
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________
> John D. Corless
> Institute of Optics                             (716) 275-8006 phone
> University of Rochester                         (716) 244-4936 fax
> Rochester, NY 14627                         corless at optics.rochester.edu
> ________________________________________________________________________

Assuming that you have a prepared list of values, you could do something
like the following:

In[1]:= f[x1_,x2_] := x2 + Cos[x1]	(* your function *)

In[2]:= l = {.5,.8,.95,1};		(* a sample list of numbers *)

In[3]:= g[x2_] := FindRoot[f[x1,x2] == 0, {x1, 1}] (* this function takes
					   the constant as its argument *)

In[4]:= Map[g,l]			(* Now map it over your list *)

Out[4]= {{x1 -> 2.0944}, {x1 -> 2.49809}, {x1 -> 2.82403}, 
 
  {x1 -> 3.14099}}

If you want to use multiple variables, then you could do:

In[5]:= f[x1_, x2_, x3_] := x3 + x2 * Cos[x1]

In[6]:= l={{.6,.3},{.5,.5},{.4,.2}};	(* list of constants in the
					   format {x2,x3} *)

In[7]:= g[{x2_,x3_}] := FindRoot[f[x1,x2,x3] == 0, {x1, 1}]

In[8]:= Map[g,l]

Out[8]= {{x1 -> 2.30052}, {x1 -> 3.14099}, {x1 -> 2.0944}}

John Fultz
Wolfram Research, Inc.


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