Interpolation and Approximation
11.1 Interpolation
For practical use, it is convenient to have an analytical representation of the relationships between variables in a physical problem, and this representation can be approximately reproduced from data given by the problem. The purpose of such a representation might be to determine the values at intermediate points, to approximate an integral or derivative, or simply to represent the phenomena of interest in the form of a smooth or continuous function.
Interpolation refers to the problem of determining a function that exactly represents a collection of data. The most elementary type of interpolation consists of fitting a polynomial to a collection of data points. For numerical purposes, polynomials ...
Get Practical Scientific Computing now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
