Babylonian method of Square roots

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the babylonia method for calculating square roots involves iteration. Suppose you wish to find the square root of 5. The babylonian method starts with a wild card guess which we will call x. You then use the iteration rule where the next x equals 0.5(x+n/x). For example, if we start with x=10, then the next x would be 0.5(10+5/10) or 5.25. We use that new value for x to determine the next value. This continues until x converges on a specific value. As the difference in x values becomes very small you now have an approximation for the square root of 5. The formula for any positive square root n is x0.5(x+n/x). Write a function that approximates the square root of a number using the babylonian method. You should stop iterations when the value doesnt change to 2 decimal places.

i have to have this function done for comp sci class....can anyone help?
thanks

[Tony]

well function is already writen for you there, you just need to put that in a continues loop

code:

var x:real var x2:real var n:real put "what number to square root?" get n x:=n loop x2:=x*0.5*(x+n/x) x:=x2 put x2 end loop

although I dont quite understand how this is suppost to find anything It skips 5.

just use

code:

put 25**(1/2)

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lol

i would, but i have to hand this is...its the final proggy for the functions unit lol

[Dan]

well if x is a guess you whould probly whont to set it to a number graeter then the one you are finding the square root for. so set x to somting like: num to find square root of + 1. then just do thous math staments in your post in a loop that stops when the number is the the rigth range. you will most likey need to use real variables for this beacuse you need the demalses.

EDIT: dang tony and his fast posting

[Tony]

well the function seems to be messed up...

actually you can try to trim the value to keep on going

like

code:

put strreal(realstr(1.23456789011111111,0))

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code:

var winID:int winID:=Window.Open("position:top,center,graphics:640;640") function babylon(n:real):real     var i,x,x1,x2,x3:real     loop     i:=Rand.Int(5,10)     x:=0.5*(i + n/ i)     x1:=0.5*(x + n / x)     x2:=0.5*(x1 + n / x1)     x3:=0.5*(x2 + n / x2)     result x3     end loop end babylon var n:real for  root:1..1000000 put "Enter in the number(0 to exit): ".. get n put babylon(n) if n=0 then loop Window.Close(winID) end loop end if end for

thats what i have so far, and it works....but it just gets less accurate the higher the number you put...it seems towork for values up to 10,000[/code]

[Tony]

that's because for values of 10,000, you need to calculate new value more then 3 times (meaning have x4).

and why is there a loop in function? It NEVER gets to endloop because of result