Numerical Method for the Root

Finding Problem: Regula Falsi Method

A Case Study on the Root-Finding Problem: Kepler’s Law of Planetary Motion

The root-finding problem is one of the most important computational problems,

arising in a wide variety of practical applications in physics, chemistry, biosciences,
engineering, etc.

Determination of any unknown appearing implicitly in scientific, or engineering

formulas gives rise to a root-finding problem.
A simple application

According to Kepler, a planet revolves around the sun in an elliptic orbit:

The position (x, y) of the planet at time t can be determined by:
The eccentric anomaly can be computed from Kepler’s equation of motion:

where M is the mean anomaly.

Thus, to find E we solve the nonlinear equation:

The solution of such an equation is the subject of this lesson.

The Root-Finding Problem is the problem of finding a root of the equation , where is a
function of a single variable . Specifically, the problem is stated as:

The number such that is called a root of the equation or a zero of the function .

The function can be algebraic or trigonometric or a combination of both.

Analytical versus Numerical Methods

Except for some very special functions, it is not possible to find an analytical expression for
the root, from where the solution can be exactly determined. This is true for even
commonly arising polynomial functions.

A polynomial of degree has the form:

The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra states that a polynomial of degree has at least
one zero.
We learn early in school how to find the root of a quadratic equation: using the analytical
formula:

Unfortunately, such analytical formulas do not exist for polynomials of degree 5 or

greater. This fact was proved by Abel and Galois in the 19th century.

Thus, most computational methods for the root-finding problem are iterative in nature.
Regula Falsi Method (or the method of false position)

Regula Falsi is a numerical method for solving an equation in one unknown.

It is quite like the bisection method algorithm and is one of the oldest approaches. It
was developed because the bisection method converges at a fairly slow speed.

In simple terms, the method is the trial-and-error technique of using test ("false")
values for the variable and then adjusting the test value according to the outcome.
 In the problem represented by the diagram below, the bisection method may not be
efficient because it does not take into consideration that is much closer to the zero of the
function as compared to .

In other words, the next predicted root

would be closer to , than the mid-point
between and .

The false-position method takes

advantage of this observation mathematically
by drawing a secant from the function value
at to the function value at estimates the root
as where it crosses the x-axis.
Based on two similar triangles, one gets:
Example
Problem