Macsyma Implementation of Brent's Rootfinding Algorithm for bfloat

Brent's rootfinding algorithm is the method of choice for one-dimensional functions where derivatives are unavailable or computationally expensive. This algorithm has been implemented in many languages (see for example Press et al. "Numerical Recipes"), including Macsyma. However, the native Macsyma implementation uses native floating point, which is sometimes insufficient, particularly if you have the misfortune of owning a Pentium processor with the fabled floating-point bug.

In these cases, you need an implementation that uses Macsyma's "bfloat" type, which provides user-selectable precision and does not use the native floating point instructions.

However, if you are the rebellious type, or if you are an extreme Bart Simpson fan, you may wish to get "Bent" instead.