>
> I have two questions concerning the current homework assignment.  The first
>concerns question 17.  Do I have to prove that one of those gives the
>x-intercept and then prove the other is equal to it OR can I assume one is
>correct (I think the first is standard form) and then just show the two given
>are equal?
>
    I think that for #17 you're to show that they're also correct! Deduce one
    from the line equation, and then show that the other is equivalent (e.g.).

> My other question is for number 26.  The wording is very confusing for the
>second sentence starting with "Suppose f".  I am assume that it really doesn't
>have much to do with the problem other than to define what f~(x) is.  Anyway,
>I am not sure I understand the point of this problem.  Can you explain why I
>need to use the MVT for part (a)?  Using the MVT to calculate the absolute
>error doesn't make any sense to me at the moment.
>
    For #26, they shouldn't have bothered defining f with the tilda cap in the
    first place. Their point is that when we think that we're calculating
    f(x0), we're actually computing f(x0-e), so we are interested in the
    difference
       |f(x0)-f(x0-e)|
and we can use the derivative to get a handle on just how big that can
    be..... That's the point of the problem. Does that help?