Math-gasm
Have you been in a place where you are so frustrated that you didn’t get a solution for a math problem in school? And wondered where in the hell we would use calculus or linear algebra?
I know I have been there!
Today, I was just trying to pick up a new programming language. After some basics of how to declare variables, basic loops and conditional statements. I reached a point where I was given an exercise to write a program in to find the square root of a number.
There was an explanation of an algorithm on how to do the same, which was pretty straight forward.
Assume we are trying to figure out the square root of a number ‘x’
- Pick an arbitrary value, let’s say ‘z’.
- Keep iterating and apply the formula z = z-((z*z)-x)/(2*z)).
- There will be a point where the value of ‘z’ will hardly change, meaning you are close enough to the square root.
Here is a draft piece of code for this, if you are interested:
I implemented the algorithm and got the desired output, but my curiosity was kindled on what exactly it is and how it worked?
I looked it up, it was called ‘Newton’s method’. To be honest, I did not understand anything of it initially, but then I started digging for more information.
I am not going to explain the method. I found a nice video explaining it in general (not just for square root, but to figure out the root of an equation).
I read the wikipedia article after going through this video again and it all made sense. I was just flabbergasted of the usage of calculus. I never thought I would use calculus after school/college, I was wrong. I loved it.
I am just math-gasm-ed.
Thanks for reading! Please clap if you were also math-gasm-ed! :)