Accurate Evaluation of Polynomials
For numerical analysts and scientists who need accurate polynomial evaluation, this method offers a practical improvement over the standard Horner's method.
The paper presents a new polynomial evaluation method that is 100 to 1000 times more accurate than Horner's method for a large class of polynomials, with only twice the floating-point operations for a single evaluation and no extra cost for subsequent evaluations at nearby points.
For a large class of polynomials, the standard method of polynomial evaluation, Horner's method, can be very inaccurate. The alternative method given here is on average 100 to 1000 times more accurate than Horner's Method. The number of floating point operations is twice that of Horner's method for a single evaluation. For repeated evaluations at nearby points, the number of floating point operations is only doubled for the first evaluation, and is the same as Horner's Method for all following evaluations. This new method is tested with random polynomials.