Laguerre's method

In numerical analysis, Laguerre's method is a root-finding algorithm tailored to polynomials. In other words, Laguerre's method can be used to numerically solve the equation p(x) = 0 for a given polynomial p(x). One of the most useful properties of this method is that it is, from extensive empirical study, very close to being a "sure-fire" method, meaning that it is almost guaranteed to always converge to some root of the polynomial, no matter what initial guess is chosen. However, for computer computation, more efficient methods are known, with which it is guaranteed to find all roots (see Root-finding algorithm § Roots of polynomials) or all real roots (see Real-root isolation).

This method is named in honour of the French mathematician, Edmond Laguerre.