Solution of equations by numerical methods

When Blanche arrives in New Orleans, she is already in “shocked disbelief” by looking “at a slip of paper, then at a building, then again at the slip and again at the building”. The use of the adjective “shocked” suggests how surprised Blanche is to see her sister live her, in contrast to where both of them lived before.

The root I was looking for was either 1. 8708(5sf. ) or -1. 8708(5sf. ). Using the Newton-Rapson method I expected to find one of the above-mentioned roots. Nevertheless there was no convergence revealed. Instead the numbers were going all over the place and were dramatically getting bigger all the time. At last the calculator was not able to handle the number; an error message was encountered. The existence of the discontinuity prevented the method from working and it has failed.