mathematics Article A Few Iterative Methods by Using [1, n]-Order Padé Approximation of Function and the Improvements Shengfeng Li 1,* , Xiaobin Liu 2 and Xiaofang Zhang 1 1 Institute of Applied Mathematics, Bengbu University, Bengbu 233030, China;
[email protected] 2 School of Computer Engineering, Bengbu University, Bengbu 233030, China;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +86-552-317-5158 Received: 15 November 2018; Accepted: 30 December 2018; Published: 7 January 2019 Abstract: In this paper, a few single-step iterative methods, including classical Newton’s method and Halley’s method, are suggested by applying [1, n]-order Padé approximation of function for finding the roots of nonlinear equations at first. In order to avoid the operation of high-order derivatives of function, we modify the presented methods with fourth-order convergence by using the approximants of the second derivative and third derivative, respectively. Thus, several modified two-step iterative methods are obtained for solving nonlinear equations, and the convergence of the variants is then analyzed that they are of the fourth-order convergence. Finally, numerical experiments are given to illustrate the practicability of the suggested variants. Henceforth, the variants with fourth-order convergence have been considered as the imperative improvements to find the roots of nonlinear equations. Keywords: nonlinear equations; Padé approximation; iterative method; order of convergence; numerical experiment 1. Introduction It is well known that a variety of problems in different fields of science and engineering require to find the solution of the nonlinear equation f (x) = 0 where f : I ! D, for an interval I ⊆ R and D ⊆ R, is a scalar function.