MIT6001x_Review_Lec3_Loops, Strings, Guess-and-Check, Approximation, Bisection

strings

• a sequence of case-sensitive characters
• can compare: ==. <, >, <=, >=

>>> 'a' < 'b'
True
## alphabetic order 

• len()
• aStr[ ] indexing and slicing
• immutable

Approximate Solutions

Exhaustive Numeration

Quesiont: Finding the cube root（三次方根）of a number.

1. Guess: take small steps to generate guesses in order
   –> Start with a guess and increment by a small value
2. Check: check to see if the guess is close enough
   –> ( ) < epsilon 【close enough：smaller than the epsilon 小于误差】

epsilon: the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet (Ε, ε), a short vowel, transliterated as e
In mathematics, a small positive infinitesimal (extremely small) quantity, usually denoted or , whose limit is usually taken as . The late mathematician P. Erdős also used the term “epsilons” to refer to children (Hoffman 1998, p. 4).

More efficient --> Bisection

small ---- half point — big

precondtion: Bisection search works when the function varies monotonically with input. 单调函数

Floats

• Floats approxiamte real numbers
• Decimal 十进制
  302 = 310**2 + 0101 + 210*0
• Binary 二进制
  10011 = 12**4 + 023 + 0*22 + 12**1 + 12**0

Decimal --> Binary

def convert10to2(n):
    '''
    converting a decimal n to binary form
    n: a whole number (int)
    return: a binary form number (str)
    ''' 
    binary = ''
    isNegative = False 
    if n < 0:
        isNegative = True 
        n = abs(n)
    if n == 0:
        binary = '0'
    while n > 0:
        binary = str(n % 2) + binary 
        n = n //2 
    if isNegative:
        binary = '-' + binary 
    return binary

Fractions & Floats in python

Decimal: 1.949 == 1949 / 10^3
Binary: (0.375) 0.011 = 11 (3) / 2^3

def convert10to2Fra(n):
    '''
    converting a decimal n to binary form
    n: a fraction between 0 and 1 (float)
    return: a binary form number (str)
    ''' 
    # finding p, which makes n*(2**p) a whole num
    p = 0
    while n*(2**p)%1 != 0:
        p += 1
    intN = int(n*(2**p))
    resultN = convert10to2(intN)
    resultn = '0.' + (p-len(resultN))*'0' + resultN
    return p, resultn

floats in python

representation
key: to find the p that makes (n*2^p) a whole number, which sometimes is not possilbe
–> thus floats in python is represented by approximation, rather than a real number

Iterative Algorithm

Guess-Check-Guess

• Finding a close enough guess by setting an epsilon
• Using a looping construct

while abs() >= epsilon:

How to generate guesses

1. Exhaustive enumeration
   n += 1

2. Bisection search
   guess = (high + low) / 2
   adjusting high/low
   precondition: monotonical function

3. Newton-Raphson
   for root finding