Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers

by Hamming, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780486652412
• ISBN10: 0486652416
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1987-03-01
• Publisher: Dover Publications

Summary

For this inexpensive paperback edition of a groundbreaking classic, the author has extensively rearranged, rewritten and enlarged the material. Book is unique in its emphasis on the frequency approach and its use in the solution of problems. Contents include: Fundamentals and Algorithms; Polynomial Approximation Classical Theory; Fourier Approximation Modern Therory; Exponential Approximation.

Author Biography

Richard W. Hamming: The Computer Icon
Richard W. Hamming (1915–1998) was first a programmer of one of the earliest digital computers while assigned to the Manhattan Project in 1945, then for many years he worked at Bell Labs, and later at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He was a witty and iconoclastic mathematician and computer scientist whose work and influence still reverberates through the areas he was interested in and passionate about. Three of his long-lived books have been reprinted by Dover: Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers, 1987; Digital Filters, 1997; and Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability and Statistics, 2004.

In the Author's Own Words:
"The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers."

"There are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think."

"Whereas Newton could say, 'If I have seen a little farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants, I am forced to say, 'Today we stand on each other's feet.' Perhaps the central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different way."

"If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work." — Richard W. Hamming

Table of Contents

Preface
I Fundamentals and Algorithms
  1 An Essay on Numerical Methods
  2 Numbers
  3 Function Evaluation
  4 Real Zeros
  5 Complex Zeros
  *6 Zeros of Polynomials
  7 Linear Equations and Matrix Inversion
  *8 Random Numbers
  9 The Difference Calculus
  10 Roundoff
  *11 The Summation Calculus
  *12 Infinite Series
  13 Difference Equations
II Polynomial Approximation-Classical Theory
  14 Polynomial Interpolation
  15 Formulas Using Function Values
  16 Error Terms
  17 Formulas Using Derivatives
  18 Formulas Using Differences
  *19 Formulas Using the Sample Points as Parameters
  20 Composite Formulas
  21 Indefinite Integrals-Feedback
  22 Introduction to Differential Equations
  23 A General Theory of Predictor-Corrector Methods
  24 Special Methods of Integrating Ordinary Differential Equations
  25 Least Squares: Practice Theory
  26 Orthogonal Functions
  27 Least Squares: Practice
  28 Chebyshev Approximation: Theory
  29 Chebyshev Approximation: Practice
  *30 Rational Function Approximation
III Fournier Approximation-Modern Theory
  31 Fourier Series: Periodic Functions
  32 Convergence of Fourier Series
  33 The Fast Fourier Transform
  34 The Fourier Integral: Nonperiodic Functions
  35 A Second Look at Polynomial Approximation-Filters
  *36 Integrals and Differential Equations
  *37 Design of Digital Filters
  *38 Quantization of Signals
IV Exponential Approximation
  39 Sums of Exponentials
  *40 The Laplace Transform
  *41 Simulation and the Method of Zeros and Poles
V Miscellaneous
  42 Approximations to Singularities
  43 Optimization
  44 Linear Independence
  45 Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors of Hermitian Matrices
  N + 1 The Art of Computing for Scientists and Engineers
Index
* Starred sections may be omitted.