Timeline for Why do Solve, NSolve, and FindRoot all fail on this simple, solvable actuarial equation?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:55 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Apr 15, 2014 at 21:31 | comment | added | Michael Stern | Brent method proved very useful. | |
| Mar 13, 2014 at 22:11 | comment | added | Szabolcs | @MichaelStern Also sorry if the answer sounded a bit rough, I had to type it up in a hurry and in one go. I recommend you try the Brent method if all you need is finding one single value that satisifies the equation (i.e. if it doesn't matter whether the number returned is 0.86 or 0.89 for as long as both satisfy the equation). | |
| Mar 13, 2014 at 22:00 | comment | added | Szabolcs | @MichaelStern Well, they already have the "knowledge base" article I linked to. I'm not sure it's possible at all to fix this shortcoming, it's too deeply rooted in the language. I think everybody here fell into this trap at least once while using Mathematica. I certainly did. | |
| Mar 13, 2014 at 21:52 | comment | added | Michael Stern | Yes, thanks. I need to apply this in an automated way, so I implemented a brute-force-ish method that works. I wonder, if questions of this sort are posted weekly, if Wolfram might change the error messages produced by these functions to be more useful, and/or write about these issues more directly in their documentation. | |
| Mar 13, 2014 at 21:48 | vote | accept | Michael Stern | ||
| Mar 13, 2014 at 20:50 | comment | added | Szabolcs |
The plot will easily give you an x that satsfies the equation. If you need the full precise range of x, you can either write a bisection method, or extract it from Plot. I typed this up in a rush, let me know if you need more info.
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| Mar 13, 2014 at 20:46 | history | answered | Szabolcs | CC BY-SA 3.0 |