Intersect Function

hh hh at hyperhh.de
Mon Sep 24 17:43:07 EDT 2018


> Jerry J. wrote:
> I think he mentioned curved “lines”. That is a
> whole other kettle of fish.

The OP speaks of "functions for the lines", so
either he means "math lines" or, as you say,
continuous curves, say polynomials.

Yes, this isn't solvable for polynomials of higher
degree by formulas (not because mathematicians
didn't find the formula, to the contrary, it
is proved that there is no formula for that).

So the solution is a numerical one, finding the
roots of (say for simplicity) polynomials.
There are several fast algorithms for that.
One of the simplest (and usually fast enough)
is the Newton-Raphson method.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_method

A trial and error method as proposed by Craig may
be good enough for very simple curves. This is
also a (good) pragmatic approach.

On the other hand the Newton-Raphson method is
simple to script.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_method

As LC can not differentiate, you have to do that
by yourself before applying it.

[For non-math people:
The intersection point of two functions is a
root finding problem, because searching the point
x where f1(x)=f1(x) is the same as finding the
"root" (zero point g(x)=0) of g(x)= f1(x)-f2(x).]






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