CAIE P3 2017 November — Question 3

Exam BoardCAIE
ModuleP3 (Pure Mathematics 3)
Year2017
SessionNovember
TopicFixed Point Iteration

3 The equation \(x ^ { 3 } = 3 x + 7\) has one real root, denoted by \(\alpha\).
  1. Show by calculation that \(\alpha\) lies between 2 and 3 .
    Two iterative formulae, \(A\) and \(B\), derived from this equation are as follows: $$\begin{aligned} & x _ { n + 1 } = \left( 3 x _ { n } + 7 \right) ^ { \frac { 1 } { 3 } }
    & x _ { n + 1 } = \frac { x _ { n } ^ { 3 } - 7 } { 3 } \end{aligned}$$ Each formula is used with initial value \(x _ { 1 } = 2.5\).
  2. Show that one of these formulae produces a sequence which fails to converge, and use the other formula to calculate \(\alpha\) correct to 2 decimal places. Give the result of each iteration to 4 decimal places.