  Univariate polynomial root-finding is both classical and important for modern
computing. Frequently one seeks just the real roots of a polynomial with real
coefficients. They can be approximated at a low computational cost if the
polynomial has no nonreal roots, but typically nonreal roots are much more
numerous than the real ones. We dramatically accelerate the known algorithms in
this case by exploiting the correlation between the computations with matrices
and polynomials, extending the techniques of the matrix sign iteration, and
exploiting the structure of the companion matrix of the input polynomial. We
extend some of the proposed techniques to the approximation of the real
eigenvalues of a real nonsymmetric matrix.
