A Brief Introduction To Numerical Analysis

A logically organized advanced textbook, which turns the reader into an active participant by asking questions, hinting, giving direct recommendations, comparing different methods, and discussing "pessimistic" and "optimistic" approaches to numerical analysis. Advanced students and graduate students majoring in computer science, physics and mathematics will find this book helpful.

This textbook provides an accessible and concise introduction to numerical analysis for upper undergraduate and beginning graduate students from various backgrounds. It was developed from the lecture notes of four successful courses on numerical analysis taught within the MPhil of Scientific Computing at the University of Cambridge. The book is easily accessible, even to those with limited knowledge of mathematics. Students will get a concise, but thorough introduction to numerical analysis. In addition the algorithmic principles are emphasized to encourage a deeper understanding of why an algorithm is suitable, and sometimes unsuitable, for a particular problem. A Concise Introduction to Numerical Analysis strikes a balance between being mathematically comprehensive, but not overwhelming with mathematical detail. In some places where further detail was felt to be out of scope of the book, the reader is referred to further reading. The book uses MATLAB® implementations to demonstrate the workings of the method and thus MATLAB's own implementations are avoided, unless they are used as building blocks of an algorithm. In some cases the listings are printed in the book, but all are available online on the book’s page at www.crcpress.com. Most implementations are in the form of functions returning the outcome of the algorithm. Also, examples for the use of the functions are given. Exercises are included in line with the text where appropriate, and each chapter ends with a selection of revision exercises. Solutions to odd-numbered exercises are also provided on the book’s page at www.crcpress.com. This textbook is also an ideal resource for graduate students coming from other subjects who will use numerical techniques extensively in their graduate studies.

This Second Edition of a standard numerical analysis text retains organization of the original edition, but all sections have been revised, some extensively, and bibliographies have been updated. New topics covered include optimization, trigonometric interpolation and the fast Fourier transform, numerical differentiation, the method of lines, boundary value problems, the conjugate gradient method, and the least squares solutions of systems of linear equations. Contains many problems, some with solutions.

Praise for the First Edition ". . . outstandingly appealing with regard to its style, contents, considerations of requirements of practice, choice of examples, and exercises." —Zentrablatt Math ". . . carefully structured with many detailed worked examples . . ." —The Mathematical Gazette ". . . an up-to-date and user-friendly account . . ." —Mathematika An Introduction to Numerical Methods and Analysis addresses the mathematics underlying approximation and scientific computing and successfully explains where approximation methods come from, why they sometimes work (or don't work), and when to use one of the many techniques that are available. Written in a style that emphasizes readability and usefulness for the numerical methods novice, the book begins with basic, elementary material and gradually builds up to more advanced topics. A selection of concepts required for the study of computational mathematics is introduced, and simple approximations using Taylor's Theorem are also treated in some depth. The text includes exercises that run the gamut from simple hand computations, to challenging derivations and minor proofs, to programming exercises. A greater emphasis on applied exercises as well as the cause and effect associated with numerical mathematics is featured throughout the book. An Introduction to Numerical Methods and Analysis is the ideal text for students in advanced undergraduate mathematics and engineering courses who are interested in gaining an understanding of numerical methods and numerical analysis.

On the occasion of this new edition, the text was enlarged by several new sections. Two sections on B-splines and their computation were added to the chapter on spline functions: Due to their special properties, their flexibility, and the availability of well-tested programs for their computation, B-splines play an important role in many applications. Also, the authors followed suggestions by many readers to supplement the chapter on elimination methods with a section dealing with the solution of large sparse systems of linear equations. Even though such systems are usually solved by iterative methods, the realm of elimination methods has been widely extended due to powerful techniques for handling sparse matrices. We will explain some of these techniques in connection with the Cholesky algorithm for solving positive definite linear systems. The chapter on eigenvalue problems was enlarged by a section on the Lanczos algorithm; the sections on the LR and QR algorithm were rewritten and now contain a description of implicit shift techniques. In order to some extent take into account the progress in the area of ordinary differential equations, a new section on implicit differential equa tions and differential-algebraic systems was added, and the section on stiff differential equations was updated by describing further methods to solve such equations.

This book provides an extensive introduction to numerical computing from the viewpoint of backward error analysis. The intended audience includes students and researchers in science, engineering and mathematics. The approach taken is somewhat informal owing to the wide variety of backgrounds of the readers, but the central ideas of backward error and sensitivity (conditioning) are systematically emphasized. The book is divided into four parts: Part I provides the background preliminaries including floating-point arithmetic, polynomials and computer evaluation of functions; Part II covers numerical linear algebra; Part III covers interpolation, the FFT and quadrature; and Part IV covers numerical solutions of differential equations including initial-value problems, boundary-value problems, delay differential equations and a brief chapter on partial differential equations. The book contains detailed illustrations, chapter summaries and a variety of exercises as well some Matlab codes provided online as supplementary material. “I really like the focus on backward error analysis and condition. This is novel in a textbook and a practical approach that will bring welcome attention." Lawrence F. Shampine A Graduate Introduction to Numerical Methods and Backward Error Analysis” has been selected by Computing Reviews as a notable book in computing in 2013. Computing Reviews Best of 2013 list consists of book and article nominations from reviewers, CR category editors, the editors-in-chief of journals, and others in the computing community.

This textbook provides an introduction to constructive methods that provide accurate approximations to the solution of numerical problems using MATLAB.