Solving numerically with Excel?

I have a problem, and it's a gap with not being able to evaluate numerically (non-algebraic solutions) with Excel. I have written a Mathematica solution using Findroot, but it requires me to manually put in 3#'s, hit enter, then copy paste results back to excel. I have to do this for a few thousand rows of data! I realize Wolfram sells an applet to plug into Excel, but I don't own it.

Does anybody have any other solutions on how to solve numerically with an excel spreadsheet? I've tried reading Mathematica help to import/process/export... to no avail.

Cheers

I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to accomplish, but you will almost certainly need to use one of the following:

1) VBA - there are a large number of VBA functions out there that implement various numerical methods. Use you favorite search engine to search for "VBA numerical methods." Or, if you understand the math (I suspect that you do), you may find it more convenient to write your own user-defined function in VBA.

2) The Solver might do what you want. Or, if it is a simple problem without constraints you may be able to use Goal Seek. I don't expect that either of these will work for you, but I thought that I'd toss it out there.

3) You may be able to use iteration to arrive at a solution. That is, intentionally set up some circular references on your worksheet. As long as they will converge, this may work. You will need to enable iteration and set some limits. Go to Tools --> Options and then the Calculation tab. Iteration settings are in the middle section.

Mathematica is pretty high-powered so you can't easily (if at all) replicate some of the things it does by using Excel.

Tim
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