Newton's Method Help...

I need help with this problem:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2761/captureny.png

Any ideas?

Hi,
the first thing to do is to convert the above question to a root finding problem.

you can do so by first finding distance of an arbituary point on the curve from (-3,0).

you should get the equation of d = sqroot( (Xo - (-3) )^2 + (f(Xo) - 0 )^2 ) , where (Xo, f(Xo)) is an arbituary point on the curve.

since distance in this case has an absolute minimum, use Newton's Method to find the root of this derivative, d'(Xo) = 0, to solve for the value of Xo where this absolute minimum occurs, ie, the point closest to (-3, 0).

Hope this helps!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BeSweeet

I need help with this problem:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2761/captureny.png

Any ideas?

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Also, we can solve for the square of the distance being a minimum.





Differentiating and equating to zero



leading to a cubic



Using Newton's method





Finally, choose an initial estimate for x and run through a few iterations
to find the x co-ordinate of the point of contact of the tangential circle.