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In mathematics, divided differences is an algorithm, historically used for computing tables of logarithms and trigonometric functions. [citation needed] Charles Babbage's difference engine, an early mechanical calculator, was designed to use this algorithm in its operation. [1] Divided differences is a recursive division process.
The divided differences can be written in the form of a table. For example, for a function f is to be interpolated on points x 0 , … , x n {\displaystyle x_{0},\ldots ,x_{n}} . Write
Toggle the table of contents. ... In mathematical analysis, the mean value theorem for divided differences generalizes the mean value theorem to higher derivatives. [1]
The principle of a difference engine is Newton's method of divided differences. If the initial value of a polynomial (and of its finite differences) is calculated by some means for some value of X, the difference engine can calculate any number of nearby values, using the method generally known as the method of finite differences.
where the only non-zero value on the right hand side is in the (+)-th row. An open source implementation for calculating finite difference coefficients of arbitrary derivates and accuracy order in one dimension is available. [2]
The original use of interpolation polynomials was to approximate values of important transcendental functions such as natural logarithm and trigonometric functions.Starting with a few accurately computed data points, the corresponding interpolation polynomial will approximate the function at an arbitrary nearby point.
In numerical analysis, Hermite interpolation, named after Charles Hermite, is a method of polynomial interpolation, which generalizes Lagrange interpolation.Lagrange interpolation allows computing a polynomial of degree less than n that takes the same value at n given points as a given function.
This process yields p 0,4 (x), the value of the polynomial going through the n + 1 data points (x i, y i) at the point x. This algorithm needs O(n 2) floating point operations to interpolate a single point, and O(n 3) floating point operations to interpolate a polynomial of degree n.