In numerical analysis, the secant method is a root-finding algorithm that uses a succession of roots of secant lines to better approximate a root of a function f. The secant method can be thought of as a finite difference approximation of Newton's method. However, the method was developed independently of Newton's method, and predated the latter by over 3,000 years.
Read more about Secant Method: The Method, Derivation of The Method, Convergence, Comparison With Other Root-finding Methods, Generalizations, A Computational Example
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“No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)