Office: 1526 LGRT
Phone: (413) 545-2817
Office Hours: M 3:30-4:30 & Th 11-12
Email: johnston at math umass edu
Course description: The course will introduce basic numerical
methods used for solving problems that arise in different scientific fields.
Properties such as accuracy of methods, their stability and efficiency
will be studied. Students will gain
practical programming experience in implementing the methods using MATLAB.
The use of MATLAB for homework assignments will be mandatory.
We will also discuss some very important practical considerations of
implementing numerical methods using such languages as FORTRAN, C or C++.
Topics: We will cover the following topics (not necessarily in this order):
Access to MATLAB at UMass: Here is a link to the
OIT Computer Classrooms website.
MATLAB Help: Here are a few PDF files and links
for help with MATLAB:
OCTAVE Homepage:
Octave is an open source program that is mostly compatible with MATLAB.
9/8/09
First day of class. Assigned HW #1,
due 9/17/09. Read sections 1.1 & 1.2.
9/10/09
Taylor polynomials.
Read sections 2.1 & 2.2.
9/15/09
Floating point arithmetic.
Read section 3.1. Here are the m-files taylor_exp_ex.m
and fp_example.m .
9/17/09
More on floating point arithmetic. Assigned HW #2,
due 9/24/09.
9/24/09
Bisection method. Read sections 3.1 & 3.4.
10/1/09
Fixed point methods. Assigned HW #3 due 10/8/09. Here is the m-file bisect.m .
10/8/09
Newton's method. Assigned HW #4 due 10/16/09 by 12 noon. Here is the m-file newton.m .
11/8/09
Interpolation contd. Assigned HW #5 due 11/17/09.
11/12/09
Numerical integration (quadrature). Read sections 5.1 & 5.2.
11/19/09
Numerical integration contd. Assigned HW #6 due 12/3/09. Read section 5.3.
Homework Solutions: