[SciPy-user] zeros of a function

[Anne Archibald]

On 23/05/07, william ratcliff <william.ratcliff at gmail.com> wrote:
> What about re-expressing the problem as a nonlinear optimization problem
> where you're fitting a function function to a vector of zeros?  Then, use
> your favorite global optimizer to try to find the minima of the "chi^2" of
> this function.  The issue here is that for some functions, even a global
> optimizer could run into problems...

Global optimization is *hard*. If you make a scalar function by (say)
computing the squared length of a vector you want to find a zero of,
you're almost certain to wind up with zillions of spurious local
minima. They talk about this in Numerical Recipes too.

Anne