Square root in Scheme
This implements a square root function in Scheme using Newton's approximation algorithm.
Basically, if you want the square root of y and your best guess is x, a better guess is the average of x and y/x.
So, if you want the square root of 10 and your best guess is 3,
x=3 y=10 x<-(3 + 10/3)/2
x=3.166 y=10 x<-(3.166 + 10/3.133)/2
x=3.162
...
Basically, if you want the square root of y and your best guess is x, a better guess is the average of x and y/x.
So, if you want the square root of 10 and your best guess is 3,
x=3 y=10 x<-(3 + 10/3)/2
x=3.166 y=10 x<-(3.166 + 10/3.133)/2
x=3.162
...
(define (sqrt-iter guess x) (if (good-enough? guess x) guess (sqrt-iter (improve guess x) x))) (define (improve guess x) (average guess (/ x guess))) (define (average x y) (/ (+ x y) 2)) (define (good-enough? guess x) (< (abs (- (square guess) x)) 0.001)) (define (sqrt x) (sqrt-iter 1.0 x)) (sqrt 10)
