The Siam 100 Digit Challenge

This book takes readers on a thrilling tour of some of the most important and powerful areas of contemporary numerical mathematics. The tour is organized along the 10 problems of the SIAM 100-Digit Challenge, a contest posed by Nick Trefethen of Oxford University in the January/February 2002 issue of SIAM News. The complete story of the contest as well as a lively interview with Nick Trefethen are also included. The authors, members of teams that solved all 10 problems, show in detail multiple approaches for solving each problem, ranging from elementary to sophisticated, from brute-force to schemes that can be scaled to provide thousands of digits of accuracy and that can solve even larger related problems. The authors touch on virtually every major technique of modern numerical analysis: matrix computation, iterative linear methods, limit extrapolation and convergence acceleration, numerical quadrature, contour integration, discretization of PDEs, global optimization, Monte Carlo and evolutionary algorithms, error control, interval and high-precision arithmetic, and many more.

Gives concrete examples of how to justify the validity of every single digit of a numerical answer.

The major emphasis of the Dagstuhl Seminar on “Numerical Validation in C- rent Hardware Architectures” lay on numerical validation in current hardware architecturesand softwareenvironments. The generalidea wasto bring together experts who are concerned with computer arithmetic in systems with actual processor architectures and scientists who develop, use, and need techniques from veri?ed computation in their applications. Topics of the seminar therefore included: – The ongoing revision of the IEEE 754/854 standard for ?oating-point ari- metic – Feasible ways to implement multiple precision (multiword) arithmetic and to compute the actual precision at run-time according to the needs of input data – The achievement of a similar behavior of ?xed-point, ?oating-point and - terval arithmetic across language compliant implementations – The design of robust and e?cient numerical programsportable from diverse computers to those that adhere to the IEEE standard – The development and propagation of validated special-purpose software in di?erent application areas – Error analysis in several contexts – Certi?cation of numerical programs, veri?cation and validation assessment Computer arithmetic plays an important role at the hardware and software level, when microprocessors, embedded systems, or grids are designed. The re- ability of numerical softwarestrongly depends on the compliance with the cor- sponding ?oating-point norms. Standard CISC processors follow the 1985 IEEE norm 754, which is currently under revision, but the new highly performing CELL processor is not fully IEEE compliant.

In 1940 G. H. Hardy published A Mathematician's Apology, a meditation on mathematics by a leading pure mathematician. Eighty-two years later, An Applied Mathematician's Apology is a meditation and also a personal memoir by a philosophically inclined numerical analyst, one who has found great joy in his work but is puzzled by its relationship to the rest of mathematics.

This book is a pedagogical presentation of the application of spectral and pseudospectral methods to kinetic theory and quantum mechanics. There are additional applications to astrophysics, engineering, biology and many other fields. The main objective of this book is to provide the basic concepts to enable the use of spectral and pseudospectral methods to solve problems in diverse fields of interest and to a wide audience. While spectral methods are generally based on Fourier Series or Chebychev polynomials, non-classical polynomials and associated quadratures are used for many of the applications presented in the book. Fourier series methods are summarized with a discussion of the resolution of the Gibbs phenomenon. Classical and non-classical quadratures are used for the evaluation of integrals in reaction dynamics including nuclear fusion, radial integrals in density functional theory, in elastic scattering theory and other applications. The subject matter includes the calculation of transport coefficients in gases and other gas dynamical problems based on spectral and pseudospectral solutions of the Boltzmann equation. Radiative transfer in astrophysics and atmospheric science, and applications to space physics are discussed. The relaxation of initial non-equilibrium distributions to equilibrium for several different systems is studied with the Boltzmann and Fokker-Planck equations. The eigenvalue spectra of the linear operators in the Boltzmann, Fokker-Planck and Schrödinger equations are studied with spectral and pseudospectral methods based on non-classical orthogonal polynomials. The numerical methods referred to as the Discrete Ordinate Method, Differential Quadrature, the Quadrature Discretization Method, the Discrete Variable Representation, the Lagrange Mesh Method, and others are discussed and compared. MATLAB codes are provided for most of the numerical results reported in the book - see Link under 'Additional Information' on the the right-hand column.

A quiet revolution in mathematical computing and scientific visualization took place in the latter half of the 20th century. These developments have dramatically enhanced modes of mathematical insight and opportunities for "exploratory" computational experimentation. This volume collects the experimental and computational contributions of Jonathan and Peter Borwein over the past quarter century.

Experimental Mathematics is a recently structured field of Mathematics that uses a computer and advanced computing technology as tools to perform experiments such as analysis of examples, testing of new ideas, and the search of patterns.

Plenty of examples and case studies utilize Mathematica 7's newest tools, such as dynamic manipulations and adaptive three-dimensional plotting. Emphasizes the breadth of Mathematica and the impressive results of combining techniques from different areas. Whenever possible, the book shows how Mathematica can be used to discover new things. Striking examples include the design of a road on which a square wheel bike can ride, the design of a drill that can drill square holes, and new and surprising formulas for p. Visualization is emphasized throughout, with finely crafted graphics in each chapter.