×

Applied numerical methods in C. (English) Zbl 0780.65001

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall International, Inc.. xiv, 604 p. (1993).
The popularity of the C programming language has been steadily growing during the past decade. Along with this general development it has gained footing also in numerical computing where FORTRAN traditionally has been and still continues to be the most widely used language.
Currently there are very few numerical methods textbooks available with C as the language of instruction. There is a considerable need for such books and thus the book under review is a welcome addition to the literature. The author says in the preface that the mathematical content of the book is essentially identical with the earlier FORTRAN version of the book except that a few examples are now added and the programs are written in C.
All the traditional topics of numerical mathematics are covered. These include: error analysis, polynomial interpolation, solution of nonlinear equations, numerical integration and differentiation, numerical linear algebra, computation of matrix eigenvalues, curve fitting, initial and boundary value problems for ordinary differential equations, and discussion of elliptic, hyperbolic and parabolic partial differential equations.
Each chapter of the book provides several examples with full solutions (manual calculation), documentation of the programs for the chapter including program listing and sample output, as well as numerous problems for the students. Many of these carefully designed problems and examples deal with applications to physical sciences.
In the preface the author describes some of the goals of the book as follows: (1) to be easily understood by undergraduate students with minimal knowledge of mathematics; (2) to enable students to practice C; (3) to provide short programs that can be easily used for scientific applications with or without modification and (4) to provide software that is easy to understand.
In my opinion these goals are well achieved. The software that is separately available on a diskette is indeed easy to use and is certainly welcomed by the users of the book. The software (45 programs) is accompanied by a software manual. According to the author the software should be essentially machine independent except for a graphics program for users of Quick C compiler or IRIS computers. In my PC the programs run without problems. I recommend this book to the growing number of science and engineering students who program in C as well as to the instructors of numerical methods courses.

MSC:

65-01 Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to numerical analysis
68N15 Theory of programming languages
65Dxx Numerical approximation and computational geometry (primarily algorithms)
65Fxx Numerical linear algebra
65G50 Roundoff error
65H10 Numerical computation of solutions to systems of equations
65Lxx Numerical methods for ordinary differential equations
65Mxx Numerical methods for partial differential equations, initial value and time-dependent initial-boundary value problems
65Nxx Numerical methods for partial differential equations, boundary value problems
15-04 Software, source code, etc. for problems pertaining to linear algebra
26-04 Software, source code, etc. for problems pertaining to real functions
34-04 Software, source code, etc. for problems pertaining to ordinary differential equations
PDFBibTeX XMLCite