I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. The following does not return a fixed point: from scipy import optimize xxroot= optimize.fixed_point(lambda xx: exp(-2.0*xx)/2.0, 1.0, args=(), xtol=1e-12, maxiter=500) print ' %f solves fixed point, ie f(%f)=%f ?'% (xxroot,xxroot,exp(-2.0*xxroot)/2.0) Chris