Numerical Analysis Resources
The principal reason we think we can do without a text this semester is that there is such an abundance of resources available free, or at low cost. Here is a list of a few of them. The appearance of a site on this list should not be taken as an endorsement of the material. The sheer volume of material available makes it difficult to vet everything as thoroughly as I would like. If you find mistakes or other infelicities, please let the instructor know.
Free Internet Resources
- Numerical Computing with Matlab, by Cleve Moler. You will need to register to download this text.
- Transforming Numerical Methods Education for the STEM Undergraduate has text materials as well as youtube lectures.
- Wikibooks
- A site at Cal Fullerton has a variety of resources, but what seemed most interesting was some animations of certain numerical methods.
- I question the strategy of covering elliptic PDEs before discussing methods for linear algebra, but a physicist at Oxford has produced a text that does so. It uses Maple, and appears to have useful information.
- MIT has a large number of online course materials, including some for Numerical Analysis for Engineers.
Software
Textbooks
If you feel a need to have an actual book to look at, here are some. Since these are not required, if you choose to buy one you may pick any edition you like.
- Scientific Computing, An Introductory Survey, by Michael Heath, is a relatively new book that covers topics in a good order. I have not used this book, but I like its table of contents.
- Elementary Numerical Analysis: An Algorithmic Approach, Conte and DeBoor, is an old book that I have always liked. The order of the topics is not what I prefer, but it is written well at a good undergraduate level. I see that you can buy used copies for as little as $0.30. At that price, you cannot afford not to have this on your shelf.
- Numerical Analysis: Mathematics of Scientific Computing, by Kinkaid and Cheney, is a book I have used for this course before.
- Numerical Analysis, by Richard Burden and J. Douglas Faires, is a text that has been used very broadly. It should be possible to pick up a cheap older edition.
Welcome to Math 448, Numerical Analysis.
Note that we have no textbook this Summer semester. You will
need to check this web site often to get homework assignments
and other news of the course.