Chapter 2:
Documenting Polynomial Zero Finding
The emphasis in this chapter is on creating a simple mathematical document about the finding of
the zeros of a polynomial. At the same time you will learn the corresponding basic techniques of
using D
ERIVE
.
Start D
ERIVE
.
Your first session with D
ERIVE
left a trace in the form of an initialization file. This file stores
information about the status of D
ERIVE
before you last shut it down. For example, the change
performed with the
Options>Display>Font of New Text Objects
command is among the data in
this file. The
Derive Startup
dialog gives you the choice to either start D
ERIVE
with the factory
default settings or start D
ERIVE
with the settings from the initialization file, i.e. with some of the
changes from the first chapter. This book is written so that each chapter starts with a factory
default D
ERIVE
. We recommend that you do the same.
Start with a factory default D
ERIVE
by exiting the dialog with
(_Yes_)
.
Start the new document with an appropriate headline.
Insert a text object containing the text “
Finding the zeros of a polynomial
.”
You will look for the zeros of the polynomial
( )
y
p x
=
,
4
3
2
3
5
7
1
2
4
4
4
2
x
x
x
x
y
=
+
−
−
−
.
