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CaptainBlack · #7 November 22nd, 2008, 02:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David24

CaptainBlack,

Am I correct in conjecturing that the value of x which minimises f(x) satisfies,

|x-2| =|x-2^16| ?

David

ps - I apologise for any grammatical and or spelling mistakes that may be present in the above statement.

Well lets see,

$|x-2|=|x-2^{16}|$

implies (assuming $2 \le x \le 2^{16}$ anyway) that:

$x-2=2^{16}-x$

or:

$x=2^8-1$

Now lets do some calculations:

Code:

>i=1:16;
>
>x=[2^8-1:2^8+1]'
          255 
          256 
          257 
>
>s=abs(x-2^i);
>S=sum(s)
       130052 
       130050 
       130050 
>

So we conclude that, no your proposed condition does not define the solution.

CB