Pau Atela
Burton
310 x
3814 Office
Hours: Tue 3-4:30, Wed 10-11 |
Christophe
Golé Burton
316 x
3875 Office
hours: Mon 1:30-2:30, Wed
1:30-2:30, Thu 9-10 (Tentative!) |
Textbook:
Numerical Methods for Engineers,
Fourth Edition, by Chapra and
Canale (Mc Graw Hill)
About
this Class: An introduction to the computational tools used to solve
mathematical and engineering problems such as error analysis, root finding,
systems of linear equations, optimization and, prominently, ordinary and
partial differential equations. You will use software packages, such as
Excel, Mathematica and especially
MATLAB, and will learn elementary programming within these packages.
Homework:
The homework will be posted on Course Info each week. It will be due on Thursdays
at the beginning of class.
Exams: There will be two take-home exams during the
semester. There will also be a few quizzes.
Projects:
There will be two group projects.
These projects will require a variety of skills: use of software packages, programming,
mathematical analysis, scientific common sense, and good presentation. You will
be working on the final project for approximately 3 weeks.
Course Info (http://cinfo.smith.edu/): We will be using this web resource to post and
retrieve homework and documents. If you’ve never used Course Info, use
your SS# as both your login and password. If you are not registered in the
class, you won’t have access to the class site. If this is the case, let us
know right away by email so that we can add you on the Course Info list for
this class.
Grading:
What |
When |
%
Grade |
|
Homework
and Quizzes |
Weekly
and sporadically |
25 |
|
Exam
1 |
February
21-28 (Take home) |
20 |
|
Project
1 |
March
12-19 (Take home) |
15 |
|
Exam
2 |
April
9-16 (Take home) |
20 |
|
Final
Project |
Due
May 10 (Take home) |
20 |
|
Part
1: Modeling, Computers, and Error Analysis |
Jan
29-Feb 7 |
|
Part
2: Roots of Equations |
Feb
12-14 |
|
Part
3: Linear Algebraic Equations |
Feb
19-26 |
|
Part
4: Optimization |
Feb
28-Mar 5 |
|
Part
5: Curve Fitting |
Mar
7-12 |
|
Part
7: Ordinary Differential Equations |
Mar
14-Apr 18 |
|
Part
8: Partial Differential Equations |
Apr
23-May 3 |
Software
Resources: As mentioned above, we
will concentrate on MATLAB in this course, while introducing Excel VBA and
Mathematica at some point. These three software packages are available on all
machines in the classrooms of Burton Hall, as well as the math forum and on
more computers around the campus. Here are a few links for MATLAB. We will put
more resources and links on course info as the course progresses.
A
MATLAB tutorial: http://www.math.mtu.edu/~msgocken/intro/intro.html
A
MATLAB reference card: http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/ec/scientific/Matlab/matlab.htm