Explanations of algorithms: The Neville method is basically polynomial fitting of all the data points. Because a polynomial of degree n can have up to n-1 relative maxima, the phenomenon of "polynomial wiggle" can have an adverse effect in a region with no data points, such as the one for this problem. It is seldom a good idea to use a polynomial of degree 6 or above unless it is known that the true function is a polynomial. Therefore the Neville method uses successively higher degrees for the interpolating polynomial. When the value begins to diverge, it becomes noticeable by a human (or a computer) looking at the matrix data. The accuracy of the Neville procedure is quite good because it senses when it is diverging (at least the human does). I do not know about the accuracy of the spline method in matlab, because it only outputs one number, not a movie of the procedure. However, knowing matlab, it is probably pretty accurate. They are both pretty close, and hence both probably pretty good estimates.