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MINUIT, now MINUIT2, is a numerical minimization
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developed at the
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(CERN). It provides several algorithms that search for parameter values that minimize a user-defined
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, and compute confidence intervals for the parameters by scanning the function near the minimum. The software was originally developed in the FORTRAN
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by staff
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Fred James in the 1970s, and maintained until 1996 (version 96.03). As part of the
ROOT In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...
project, the software was ported using the
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language, and renamed ''MINUIT2''. The software provides five minimization algorithms, that can be selected by simple input commands to the program. The recommended default algorithm MIGRAD is described as "a variable-metric method with inexact line search, a stable metric updating scheme, and checks for positive-definiteness". The program is widely used in
particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...
and thousands of published papers cite use of MINUIT. In the early 2000s, Fred James started a project to implement MINUIT in C++ using
object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of pr ...
. MINUIT2 is an optional package in the ROOT release. Also has link to download free-standing version, without using ROOT. In January 2022 the file was Minuit2-5.34.14.tar.gz. the latest version is 5.34.14, released on 24 January 2014. A
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port was developed, and a
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frontend to the C++ code is available. Updated as required; v2.9.0 released in January 2022


References

{{Reflist


External links

* F. James and M. Roos
Minuit: A System for Function Minimization and Analysis of the Parameter Errors and Correlations
Comput.Phys.Commun. 10 (1975) 343-367 Fortran software Numerical software