RSS Amplifier

Nick Arnosti on b · Sep 18, 2025

The Surprising Effectiveness of Linear Approximation

Read inOriginalenesdefrptjaittr
0
Sign in to vote or save

This page cannot be shown here. You can still read it on the original site — the toolbar below keeps your place in the directory.

A key idea from calculus – used frequently in optimization – is that we can use linear functions to locally approximate complicated non-linear functions. This post will illustrate the effectiveness of this approach for a very specific function, the square root (maintaining some continuity with my previous post). Estimating Square Roots to the Nearest Integer Let’s start with the following goal:…

A key idea from calculus – used frequently in optimization – is that we can use linear functions to locally approximate complicated non-linear functions. This post will illustrate the effectiveness of this approach for a very specific function, the square root (maintaining some continuity with my previous post). Estimating Square Roots to the Nearest Integer Let’s start with the following goal: find the integer closest to \(\sqrt{28}\). This is the type of problem that my wife gives to her middle school students.

Read on /blog/linearapproximation/ ↗

Comments

Nothing yet. Say the first thing.

    Sign in to join the conversation.