Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Excel graph of the difference between two evaluations of the smallest root of a quadratic: direct evaluation using the quadratic formula (accurate at smaller b) and an approximation for widely spaced roots (accurate for larger b). The difference reaches a minimum at the large dots, and round-off causes squiggles in the curves beyond this minimum.
Lagrange and other interpolation at equally spaced points, as in the example above, yield a polynomial oscillating above and below the true function. This behaviour tends to grow with the number of points, leading to a divergence known as Runge's phenomenon ; the problem may be eliminated by choosing interpolation points at Chebyshev nodes .
The problem of generating a function whose graph passes through a given set of function values is called interpolation. This interpolation formula is named after the Danish mathematician Thorvald N. Thiele. It is expressed as a continued fraction, where ρ represents the reciprocal difference:
The simplest interpolation method is to locate the nearest data value, and assign the same value. In simple problems, this method is unlikely to be used, as linear interpolation (see below) is almost as easy, but in higher-dimensional multivariate interpolation, this could be a favourable choice for its speed and simplicity.
A Lozenge diagram is a diagram that is used to describe different interpolation formulas that can be constructed for a given data set. A line starting on the left edge and tracing across the diagram to the right can be used to represent an interpolation formula if the following rules are followed: [5]
Linear interpolation on a data set (red points) consists of pieces of linear interpolants (blue lines). Linear interpolation on a set of data points (x 0, y 0), (x 1, y 1), ..., (x n, y n) is defined as piecewise linear, resulting from the concatenation of linear segment interpolants between each pair of data points.
The function depends on three parameters, the input x, the "left edge" and the "right edge", with the left edge being assumed smaller than the right edge. The function receives a real number x as an argument and returns 0 if x is less than or equal to the left edge, 1 if x is greater than or equal to the right edge, and smoothly interpolates ...
) and the interpolation problem consists of yielding values at arbitrary points (,,, … ) {\displaystyle (x,y,z,\dots )} . Multivariate interpolation is particularly important in geostatistics , where it is used to create a digital elevation model from a set of points on the Earth's surface (for example, spot heights in a topographic survey or ...