Implement the Secant method. Newton’s method (A.28) for solving f(x) = 0 requires the derivative of the function f(x). Sometimes this is difficult or inconvenient. The derivative can be approximated...

Implement the Secant method. Newton’s method (A.28) for solving f(x) = 0 requires the derivative of the function f(x). Sometimes this is difficult or inconvenient. The derivative can be approximated using the last two approximations to the root, xn−2 and xn−1: