Need Help for Math

[Piro24]

Ok, here is the unifinished code...

code:

var x, y : int x := -3 loop     y := x ** 2     put y     x += 1     delay (1200)     exit when x > 3 end loop

This program is very simple...It's a simple parabola.

What I want to do is output the minimum. So output the value of x when y is at a minimum (in this case it would be when x = 0, y is at a minimum)...Of course there are several ways you could cheat, but I want to find a way that would work for any parabola or function. I'm stumped with this question. It's probablly very simple, but I'm just over thinking because I got frustrated...

[TheFerret]

I'll give you the way that you have to learn before using, find the derivative of the function and then set that equal to 0 and then solve for x, in your case y'=2x, 0=2x, x=0 therefor, y = 0

For a fuction such as y=4x^3 + 3x^2 - 2x + 1, y' = 12x^2 + 6x - 2, set it to 0 to get x to be 0.22 or -0.73... Wikipedia will help you with this...