When the data points are equidistantly distributed we get the special case called forward differences. They are easier to calculate than the more general divided differences.
Read more about this topic: Divided Differences
Famous quotes containing the word differences:
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome about A.D. 100] hoped that teachers would be sensitive to individual differences of temperament and ability. . . . Beating, he thought, was usually unnecessary. A teacher who had made the effort to understand his pupil’s individual needs and character could probably dispense with it: “I will content myself with saying that children are helpless and easily victimized, and that therefore no one should be given unlimited power over them.””
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“When was it that the particles became
The whole man, that tempers and beliefs became
Temper and belief and that differences lost
Difference and were one? It had to be
In the presence of a solitude of the self....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)