W1-2-60-1-6

JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY

OF
AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

SMA 2321: NUMERICAL ANALYSIS I

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS
(Problem Set 1)

Attempt all the questions.

Errors
(a) i) State and briefly explain five sources of errors in obtaining numerical solutions to problems
in science and engineering.
ii) Discuss the various types of errors.

(b) Show that the relative error in the product xyz is the sum of the individual relative errors.
15.36 − 27.1 + 1.672
(c) Evaluate the following and discuss the error involved: .
2.37 × 1.048
x2
(d) i) Given x = 4.5, y = 6.7, ex = 0.1 and ey = 0.05, evaluate and discuss the error involved.
y3
ii) Determine the maximum absolute error if the function f (x) = tan−1 x is evaluated at
π
x= .
3
y2z x3 z
iii) If f (x, y, z) = √ + , find the maximum absolute error in the value of f evaluated at
x y
x = 1.0, y = 2.0, z = 3.0.
x2 y 3
iv) If w = − ye−xz , discuss the error involved in evaluating w at x = 1, y = 2, z = 1 given
z
that ex = 0.2, ey = 0.3 and ez = 0.1

(e) Given a closed cuboid of dimension x = 10.3cm, y = 8.5cm and z = 28.4cm, determine the
percentage error in computing its surface area and volume.

Polynomials and their zeros

(a) Use the method of synthetic division to obtain the quotient and the remainder when the
polynomial f (x) = 4x3 + 6x − 7 is divided by (3x + 6). Hence, evaluate f (2).
√
(b) Evaluate the polynomial f (x) = 3x3 + 5x2 − 2x + 9 at the point x = 0.5 − i 2 correct to four
decimal places.

(c) Show that the equation 3x3 − 5x2 − 4x + 4 = 0 has a root between 0 and 1. Use the following
methods to approximate the root near 1 correct to five decimal places.

i) Newton-Raphson method with synthetic division.

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 1
ii) Bisection method (find an interval of length containing the root).
8
iii) Rule of false position.
3 5
iv) Show that xn+1 = x3n − x2n + 1 is a convergent iterative formula for finding the root.
4 4
Hence, use the iterative formula and Aitken’s δ 2 −process to obtain this root.

(d) Use Bairstow’s method to obtain the quadratic factors of the polynomial

f (x) = x4 − 5x3 + 10x2 − 10x + 4

Use the factor x2 +0.5x−0.5 as an initial guess and perform three trials. Hence, use the quadratic
formula to determine all the zeros of the equation f (x) = 0.

(e) Find an efficient method

√ for computing cube roots based on the use of Newton-Raphson method.
Hence, compute 3 60 correct to 5 decimal places, initial guess is x0 = 3.

Finite differences
(a) Express each of the following in terms of functional values.

i) ∆4 f3
ii) ∇5 f8
iii) δ 3 f5
iv) µ3 f5

(b) Prove the following relations.

i) ∆ + ∇ = 2µδ
1
ii) µδ + δ 2 = ∆
2
iii) ∆ = E∇
δ
iv) E 1/2 = µ +
2
√
δ2 δ2
v) ∆ = +δ 1+
2 4
( )2
δ2
vi) 1 + δ 2 µ2 = 1+
2

(c) Evaluate the polynomial f (x) = x3 − 8x2 − 4x + 1 for integer values between x = 1 and x = 10
and construct the difference table. Hence, use the difference table to evaluate the following.

i) ∆6 f (4)
ii) ∇6 f (8)
iii) δ 6 f (5)

(d) The numbers −7, −6, −1, 2, 21 are five consecutive entries in a certain quartic. Find the two
entries preceding −7 and the two entries following 21.

(e) Prove that the nth order forward difference of a polynomial of degree n is a constant proportional
to hn , where h is the uniform spacing between the tabular points.

(f) Detect the error in the given data and correct the table. Extend the corrected table to predict
f (0) and f (11).

x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
f (x) 0.500 0.520 0.540 0.560 0.579 0.589 0.618 0.637 0.655 0.674

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Interpolation techniques
(a) Define interpolation and state TWO significance of interpolation or interpolating polynomial.

(b) The following data represents the sales revenue (in thousand dollars) of a certain company
between the year 1951 and 2001.

Year 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001

Sales 13 17 22 28 41 53

i) Estimate the sales revenue for the year 1955 using the Newton forward difference
interpolation technique.
ii) Use Newton backward difference interpolation technique to approximate the sales revenue
for the year 1986.

(c) Construct a collocation polynomial P5 (x) for the following data using Lagrange’s interpolation
technique. Hence, use the polynomial to estimate f (3).

x 0 1 2 4 5 6
f (x) 1 14 15 5 6 19

Numerical integration
∫
π/2
(√ )
(a) Estimate 1 − 0.152 sin2 x dx correct to six decimal places using
0

i) Trapezoidal rule with 2, 3, 5 and 9 ordinates.

ii) Use Romberg integration to obtain the most accurate solution.

(b) A tank is discharging water through an orifice at a depth of x meters below the surface of the
water whose area is Am2 . The following are the values of x for the corresponding values of A.

A 1.257 1.39 1.52 1.65 1.809 1.962 2.123 2.295 2.462 2.650 2.827
x 1.50 1.65 1.80 1.95 2.10 2.25 2.40 2.55 2.70 2.85 3.00

∫3.0
A
Using the formula (0.018)T = √ dx.
x
1.5

i) Calculate T (i.e., the time in seconds for the level of water to drop from 3.0m to 1.5m above
the orifice) using the Simpson’s (1/3) rule correct to three decimal places.
ii) Obtain a bound for the truncation error.
∫2
1
e−x
2 /2
(c) Find the number of integration points needed to evaluate dx, with a truncation error
2π
0
less than 10−7 using:

i) Trapezoidal rule
ii) Simpson’s (1/3) rule
∫2
(d) Estimate (4 − x2 )3/2 cos(2x)dx correct to five decimal places using:
1

i) Gauss-Legendre two point formula.

ii) Gauss-Legendre three point formula.
iii) Gauss-Chebyshev three point formula.