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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.
Equally spaced values on a logarithmic scale have exponents that increment uniformly. Examples of equally spaced values are 10, 100, 1000, 10000, and 100000 (i.e., 10 1, 10 2, 10 3, 10 4, 10 5) and 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 (i.e., 2 1, 2 2, 2 3, 2 4, 2 5). Exponential growth curves are often depicted on a logarithmic scale graph.
This expression is Newton's difference quotient (also known as a first-order divided difference). The slope of this secant line differs from the slope of the tangent line by an amount that is approximately proportional to h. As h approaches zero, the slope of the secant line approaches the slope of the tangent line.
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.
3.5 cm – width of film commonly used in motion pictures and still photography; 3.78 cm – amount of distance the Moon moves away from Earth each year [113] 4.3 cm – minimum diameter of a golf ball [114] 5 cm – usual diameter of a chicken egg; 5 cm – height of a hummingbird, the smallest-known bird; 5.08 cm – 2 inches,
For arbitrary stencil points and any derivative of order < up to one less than the number of stencil points, the finite difference coefficients can be obtained by solving the linear equations [6] ( s 1 0 ⋯ s N 0 ⋮ ⋱ ⋮ s 1 N − 1 ⋯ s N N − 1 ) ( a 1 ⋮ a N ) = d !
For that purpose, the divided-difference formula and/or its x 0 point should be chosen so that the formula will use, for its linear term, the two data points between which the linear interpolation of interest would be done. The divided difference formulas are more versatile, useful in more kinds of problems.
The rank of the first quartile is 10×(1/4) = 2.5, which rounds up to 3, meaning that 3 is the rank in the population (from least to greatest values) at which approximately 1/4 of the values are less than the value of the first quartile.