Numerical Methods for Engineers: With Software and Programming Applications

I like this book because of its approach to learning: each part contains Motivation, Mathematical Background and Orientation, then the numerical methods and finally an Epilogue.

Also, the number and variety of the problems presented contribute to accomplish our educational objectives, and the emphasis made on the growing use of software packages (MATLAB, Excel, Mathcad and IMSL) makes this book more useful for students and instructors.

This is an extensive book (more than 900 pages) and perhaps some parts of it must be omitted during a normal course (4 months, 4 hours per week in our case).

I think that the book price of the English edition (Hardcover) is high. Fortunately for our students, there is a cheaper Spanish version, although the translation is not very good (not in the technical sense but in writing and style).

In conclusion, I recommend the book to students and instructors as a comprehensive, learning oriented text with many problems in several engineering areas, and emphasis on the use of software packages, suitable to be used as textbook of numerical methods with extensive use of software.


price is high   April 19, 1999
21 out of 26 found this review helpful

this book is $55 on barnes and noble book store and is $67 on border bookstore. your price is too high


Numerical Methods made easy   February 11, 2006
Andreas O. Schwarzinger (Lake Mary, Florida)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I bought this book a little while ago to get more familiar with interpolation which I need to use in some of the signal analysis software that I write. As I was reading through the book I suddenly realized the overall usefulness of numerical methods in general. It has helped me code up routines for solving matrices and interpolation algorithms. After reading this book I really can not understand how courses in linear algebra and differential equations can be taught without extensive use of numerical methods.

This book has really opened my eyes to a whole new way of solving engineering problems.

Andy (andys@d2d.com)


Excellent Reference for Numerical Algorithms Programming   February 1, 2006
Larry Gilstrap (Austin, TX)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

If you are a programmer who must work with calculation intensive algorithms, you will need a book such as this. The chapters are well written and cover many subjects which are easily forgotten when not used often. The section explaining the difference between precision and accuracy is quite good.

Also worthy of personal praise is the suggestion that piecemeal cubic spline approximations more accurately reflect abrupt (zonal) shifts in the data, better than do higher order polynomical approximations.

The book seems to cover most of the subjects that a non-specialist programmer might need, when confronted with a numerical methods prospect. Topics include: matrix reduction, numerical differentiation and integration, truncated series approximations, curve fitting and fast fourier transforms to name a few. It also deals extensively with the nitty-gritty of computing, from bits, bytes and numerical representations; to MatLab, MathCAD, and Fortran.