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The value of the function at a maximum point is called the maximum value of the function, denoted (()), and the value of the function at a minimum point is called the minimum value of the function, (denoted (()) for clarity). Symbolically, this can be written as follows:
The geometric interpretation of Newton's method is that at each iteration, it amounts to the fitting of a parabola to the graph of () at the trial value , having the same slope and curvature as the graph at that point, and then proceeding to the maximum or minimum of that parabola (in higher dimensions, this may also be a saddle point), see below.
The curve of the chains of a suspension bridge is always an intermediate curve between a parabola and a catenary, but in practice the curve is generally nearer to a parabola due to the weight of the load (i.e. the road) being much larger than the cables themselves, and in calculations the second-degree polynomial formula of a parabola is used.
The extreme value theorem was originally proven by Bernard Bolzano in the 1830s in a work Function Theory but the work remained unpublished until 1930. Bolzano's proof consisted of showing that a continuous function on a closed interval was bounded, and then showing that the function attained a maximum and a minimum value.
Condition numbers can also be defined for nonlinear functions, and can be computed using calculus.The condition number varies with the point; in some cases one can use the maximum (or supremum) condition number over the domain of the function or domain of the question as an overall condition number, while in other cases the condition number at a particular point is of more interest.
Successive parabolic interpolation is a technique for finding the extremum (minimum or maximum) of a continuous unimodal function by successively fitting parabolas (polynomials of degree two) to a function of one variable at three unique points or, in general, a function of n variables at 1+n(n+3)/2 points, and at each iteration replacing the "oldest" point with the extremum of the fitted ...
After establishing the critical points of a function, the second-derivative test uses the value of the second derivative at those points to determine whether such points are a local maximum or a local minimum. [1] If the function f is twice-differentiable at a critical point x (i.e. a point where f ′ (x) = 0), then:
In 1659 van Heuraet published a construction showing that the problem of determining arc length could be transformed into the problem of determining the area under a curve (i.e., an integral). As an example of his method, he determined the arc length of a semicubical parabola, which required finding the area under a parabola. [9]