A bounding approach to calculating \(\alpha ^{1/p}\) (Q2266564)

The author proposes an approximation to \(\alpha^{1/p}\), \(\alpha >0\) from above and below. Actually for a good approximation \(x_{\nu}\), put \(a_{\nu +1}=[(p-1)x_{\nu}+(\alpha /x_{\nu}^{p-1})]/p,\) \(b_{\nu +1}=p/[(p-1)/x_{\nu}+x_{\nu}^{p-1}/\alpha].\) Then \(a_{\nu +1}\geq \alpha^{1/p}\geq b_{\nu +1}\) by the inequality of means. He proves that the sequence \(x_{\nu +1}=(a_{\nu +1}+b_{\nu +1})/2\) tends to \(\alpha^{1/p}\) cubically.