Math 128A: Numerical Analysis
Fall 2003, Section 1, Professor Chorin
Professor Chorin's office hours are Wednesday 11-12, and Friday, 11-1
GSI: Luiza Miranian
The main reason for this page is to provide course info and resources to
students in Math 128A discussion section.
Please note that my office hours this semester are
M 3-5 pm; Tu 3-4 pm in 1057 Evans.
Very Informal Class Syllabus
Number systems and errors, representation of numbers
Solution of nonlinear equations: bisection, secant method, Newton's
method, fixed point iteration
Interpolation: interpolating polynomial, Lagrange
form, nested form
Numerical integration: triangular, trapezoidal, Simpson, etc. rules
Numerical differentiation
Initial Value problems
If time allows, two of the following three topics:
Linear systems; Optimization; Monte Carlo.
The textbook for the class is
"Numerical Analysis: Mathematics of
Scientific Computing" by Cheney-Kincaid.
Homework assignments and comments
This is the site, where
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS AND COMMENTS are posted.
Since sometime people send me e-mails with similar questions,
I will post your questions there
(without giving out your name, unless you want me to) along with
the answers.
Useful Links
Below are some very useful matlab tutorials. Please, check them out:
Tutorial
1
Tutorial 2
Tutorial
3
Tutorial 4
And
much more ...
Also,
MathWorks MATLAB
page. You can find some MATLAB
documentation at this site, provided by the publisher of the software.
How to Access MATLAB
Many of the homework and programming assignments
will require the use of MATLAB. Here is how you can access the program.
- Use the computer lab in the basement of Evans Hall.
LOGIN INFORMATION FOR THE COMPUTER LABS IN EVANS
BASEMENT
LOGIN: !cmfmath@BERKELEY.EDU
PASSWORD: c@1flextail
The
classroom/lab in the back of the Evans Hall Microcomputer Facility (in the
basement of Evans) has a collection of computers on which MATLAB is
installed. You must login to these machines to use them. Once you login,
just find the MATLAB icon on the desktop or in the Start menu, and go!
Note that this lab
is used as a classroom, so you need to be considerate of those TAs and
students who are having their discussion sections in the room. Always ask
a TA if it is okay for you to work quietly on a machine during their
class; he or she will probably say yes, but might say no if, for example,
there aren't enough machines to go around.
- Advantages: Access to the full MATLAB graphical user interface
and to a laser printer.
- Disadvanteages: A little inconvenient; lab is not open 24/7.
- Telnet to Socrates (Requires Socrates account.) Using any
Internet-connected machine with telnet installed, connect to Socrates
remotely via telnet (or, even better, via SSH); the address is
socrates.berkeley.edu. Login with the username
and password provided to you in class, and then type "matlab" at the
command prompt.
- Advantages: Convenient (at least, if you have convenient access
to telnet/SSH).
- Disadvantages: Through this method, you only get access to the
MATLAB command line: no graphics/plots/etc. are available.
- Use Exceed to connect to Socrates (Requires a Socrates
account.) Exceed is a program that
allows you to run X Windows (a UNIX graphical user interface) on your
Windows-based PC. Thus, if you connect to Socrates via Exceed and type
"matlab" at the command prompt in a terminal window, a command line
window for MATLAB will be started, and any graphics you generate will be
displayed in newly spawned windows. You can download
Exceed for free from
Berkeley's Workstation Support Services. Follow the documentation on that
page to learn how to connect with Exceed once you have it installed.
- Advantages Access MATLAB graphics from the comfort of your dorm
room (or apartment or home or whatever).
- Disadvantages Requires a fast connection to work. You will
have to be connected to the Internet at DSL-or-faster speeds in order for
this to be workable, and even then it can be slow.
- Purchase your own copy. MATLAB is available for both Windows-
and Linux-based PCs and for the Macintosh (although the Macintosh version
is older than the current PC version). You can get a relatively
inexpensive Student version either from the campus computer store or
directly from MathWorks.
- Advantages Very convenient.
- Disadvantages Must own a computer; not free.
Other Online Software and Documentation
Send comments and questions to
Luiza.
Last updated Wed August 28 2002.
This page was originally designed by Andy Miller and Professor Demmel
for math 128A, Spring 2002