MATH 128A Homepage, Summer 2008.

Introduction to Numerical Analysis

Instructor: Lior Pachter


Lectures and discussion: Mondays--Thursdays 10am-12pm.


Textbook: Richard L. Burden and J. Douglas Faires: Numerical Analysis. The course will be based on (but not limited to) chapters 1-6.

Grading policy: The grade will be based on the homework (40%), a midterm (25%), and the final (35%).

Homework: Due at the start of class on Mondays and Wednesdays. You may collaborate on any problem which is not starred provided you adhere to the following rules:
1. You read the problem and attempt to solve it before you ask for help.
2. You write the solution in your own words (and handwriting!)
3. You credit the people/books who helped you, especially if they showed you how to do most of the problem.

Starred problems must be done on your own with no outside help.
MATLAB problems must include a complete transcript of the session.

Prerequisites: Math 53-54.

Exams: There will be a midterm in class on July 17th and a 3 hour cumulative final exam.

Philosophy: The art/science of numerical analysis is at the same time the analysis of numerical algorithms, as well as the numerical investigation of various topics from the mathematical field of "analysis". A true master is adept at both computer science (including programming and the analysis of algorithms) and pure mathematics (especially the fields of analysis, differential equations and linear algebra). We will focus on the development of rudimentary skills and our development will be based on examples and applications. We will use the MATLAB mathematics package for the implementation of algorithms.


Homework assignments:
Due Thursday June 26: 1.1 (5), 1.2 (3,4,9,17,25,28*), 2.1 (7).
Due Monday June 30: 1.1 (6,8), 1.3 (7,8*,13a).
Due Thursday July 3: 1.1 (24,25*), 2.3 (14,15,16,17,18). Write a MATLAB program that illustrates the steps of Newton's method on a graph (as in this figure) and show the results for 5 iterations of Newton's method applied to finding the root of x^2-2.
Due Monday July 7: 2.4 (2,5,10).


Related links:

Introduction to MATLAB programming (also available at Ned's bookstore)
Matlab tutorial
Mathworks help page for MATLAB ODE solvers
How the Babylonian's computed sqrt 2
Animations of root finding methods