News: Isnt maths cool

Pi, Tau and Eta

Recently, I've heard a lot about the number Ï„, and I find the whole thing a bit odd.

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Not quite the bisection method

In various first year maths courses here, the students learn the "bisection method" for finding zeros of continuous functions. (A zero of a function is a number that makes the answer of the function come out to zero – it's therefore also a point where the graph of the function crosses the x-axis.) It's based on the Intermediate Value Theorem, which basically says that if the function is below zero at one spot and above zero at another, then is must be equal to zero somewhere in between. Here's how the process goes:

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