An Introduction to Numerical Methods and Analysis, 2nd Edition

PREFACE

Preface to the Second Edition

This third version of the text is officially the Second Edition, because the second version was officially dubbed the Revised Edition. Now that the confusing explanation is out of the way, we can ask the important question: What is new?

• I continue to chase down typographical errors, a process that reminds me of herding cats. I’d like to thank everyone who has sent me information on this, especially Prof. Mark Mills of Central College in Pella, Iowa. I have become resigned to the notion that a typo-free book is the result of a (slowly converging) limiting process, and therefore is unlikely to be actually achieved. But I do keep trying.
• The text now assumes that the student is using MATLAB for computations, and many MATLAB routines are discussed and used in examples. I want to emphasize that this book is still a mathematics text, not a primer on how to use MATLAB.
• Several biographies were updated as more complete information has become widely available on the Internet, and a few have been added.
• Two sections, one on adaptive quadrature (§5.8.3) and one on adaptive methods for ODEs (§6.9) have been re-written to reflect the decision to rely more on MATLAB.
• Chapter 9 (A Survey of Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations) has been extensively re-written, with more examples and graphics.
• New material has been added:

– Two sections on roots of polynomials. The first (§3.10) introduces the Durand–Kerner algorithm; the second (§8.5) discusses ...