The numerical stability of barycentric Lagrange interpolation

The Lagrange representation of the interpolating polynomialcan be rewritten in two more computationally attractive forms:a modified Lagrange form and a barycentric form. We give anerror analysis of the evaluation of the interpolating polynomialusing these two forms. The modified Lagrange formula is shownto be backward stable. The barycentric formula has a less favourableerror analysis, but is forward stable for any set of interpolatingpoints with a small Lebesgue constant. Therefore the barycentricformula can be significantly less accurate than the modifiedLagrange formula only for a poor choice of interpolating points.This analysis provides further weight to the argument of Berrutand Trefethen that barycentric Lagrange interpolation shouldbe the polynomial interpolation method of choice.