Your question seems to concern the issue of the computability of solutions of computable functions, and the larger context for such a question is the subject known as [computable analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computable_analysis). Carl Mummert has [a very nice blog post concerning the following theorems](http://m6c.org/w/2012/02/computable-roots/), which I believe lie at the heart of your question. >>Here are several interesting results from computable analysis: >><b>Theorem 1.</b> If $f$ is a computable function from $\mathbb{R}$ to $\mathbb{R}$ and $a$ is an isolated root of $f$, then α is computable. >><b>Corollary 2.</b> If $p(x)$ is a polynomial over $\mathbb{R}$ with computable coefficients, then every root of $p(x)$ is computable. >><b>Theorem 3.</b> There is a effective closed subset of $\mathbb{R}$ which is nonempty (in fact, uncountable) but which has no computable point. >><b>Theorem 4.</b> There is a computable function from $\mathbb{R}$ to $\mathbb{R}$ which has uncountably many roots but no computable roots. But your question inquires not for an algorithm for each function separately, but a uniform algorithm working with all equations to be solved. Here, there are various non-uniformity results that one can mention. For example, by [the MRDP theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_tenth_problem), there can be no computable algorithm that determines whether a given integer polynomial equation in several variables has a solution in the integers. But meanwhile, there of course can be a computational procedure that maps any given Diophantine equation to an integer solution of it, when there is a solution, for one may simply undertake exhaustive search.