Queen's U.
Department of Computing and Information Science

CISC-271: Scientific Computing

(Fall 2006)


Last Modified:


Home page

This page provides information on the course. It tells you about the instructors, teaching assistants, course schedule, and method of grading. It also contains a course description, textbook title, and important dates for our quizzes.

WebCT

There is a WebCT page set up for this course. The WebCT page will function as a means for a class discussion bulletin board.

Course Instructor

David Rappaport
GOODWIN HALL Room 532
E-MAIL: daverATcs.queensu.ca
Office Hours: Please see me after class, or arrange a meeting through e-mail.

Course Teaching Assistants

Samar Abou Jouda
GOODWIN HALL Room 248
E-MAIL: samarATcs.queensu.ca
Office Hours:Thursday 11:00-12:30

Yurai Núñez
GOODWIN HALL Room 533
E-MAIL: yuraiATcs.queensu.ca
Office Hours: Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Course Description

One can distinguish scientific computing from other types of computing in that it often deals with Real numbers and continuous functions. The computer is capable of storing fixed precision numbers and discrete functions. Thus a great deal of what we do in this course is deal with approximations. The subject covered by this course is often called numerical analysis, or numerical methods.

A general breakdown of the subjects to be covered in this course.
  1. Representations of Floating Point Numbers, Introduction to Matlab, Taylor Series Approximations, and Representational Error Sources.
  2. Linear Systems: Gaussian Elimination, and using Scaling and Pivoting. Error analysis of Gaussian elimination. General linear system computations. Eigenvalues. Approximating Eigenvalues. Power Method for Eigenvalues.
  3. Root-finding in non-linear functions: Bisection Method, Newton's, Secant and False-Position Methods. Properties of these methods.
  4. Interpolation and Approximation: Polynomials, Lagrange's Method, Newton Divided Differences and Finite Differences, and Interpolation Errors. Piecewise Polynomials. Cubic Splines. Functional approximations, and least squares approximations.
  5. Quadrature: Newton-Cotes integration, and adaptive integration. Gaussian quadrature.
  6. Ordinary Differential Equations: Euler Method, Higher Order Taylor Methods, and Runge-Kutta Methods.

Notes

R. Ellis, Numerical Analysis Notes

These are detailed notes in the PDF format that you can download for free. Note: if you are using a public printer don't print the entire set of notes at once, especially during a busy time of day.

Course Web log

I will be maintain a BLOG for this course. My plan is to add a new entry after every lecture. You can get to it here. This year's instance of the course will probably be similar to last year. You can look at last year's blog to get an idea of what to expect.

Required Textbook

Gerald Recktenwald, Numerical Methods with MATLAB, Prentice Hall, (2000)

Optional Recommended Textbook

Cleve B. Moler, Numerical Computing with MATLAB, SIAM, (2004)

NOTE: I regularly receive books to be considered for adoption for this course. No one book is the perfect choice. The required book by Recktenwald, is one that I have used with some success for three years running. The optional book by Moler has many interesting and unique examples. That said, there are many good books on Numerical Analysis. You can probably get by with most other books coupled with the notes and the study guide.

In 2003 I used the following book. The treatment in Burden and Faires is far more mathematical than the two books listed above.

Richard L. Burden and J. Douglas Faires, Numerical Analysis 7th edition, Brookes/Cole, Boston,2001

Books on Reserve

I have put the Recktenwald, Moler and Burden and Faires books on three hour reserve in the Douglas Engineering and Science Library.

MATLAB

We will be making extensive use of MATLAB. Recktenwald has 4 chapters on the use of MATLAB. You can access information about MATLAB and some possible substitutes here.

Grading

Homework : 0%
Quizzes (5) : 20% each quiz total 100%
Final exam (0 ) : final total 0%

The homework will consist of pencil and paper problems, as well as some exercises to be performed using MATLAB, a tool for performing a variety of the techniques that we will study. You will not hand in homework. Homework questions will be posted weekly.

The quizzes will be based on the homework. The best way to study for the quiz is to do the assignment. You are expected to write all quizzes. The quizzes will be held on every 2nd Friday starting on September 29, with the exception that quiz 5 will take place 3 weeks after quiz 4 on Dec. 1.

COMPSA Tutors

If you need additional help, please check the COMPSA web page.

Computing facilities:

DISCLAIMER: This information is copied over from year to year. If you notice something that is no longer valid or accurate please inform me so that I can update the web page.
Student accounts (so you can use MATLAB) will be set up automatically within 24-48 hours of the student registering (via QCARD) for the course. The userid will be the same as the student's qlink accounts. The initial password will be the same as the student's original qlink password (you can look up your userid and initial password by feeding your student number and PIN to the "getID" program on any PC in an ITS terminal site. The procedure is documented at www.cs.queensu.ca/software_docs/qucisGuide/qucisGuide_104.html and www.its.queensu.ca/pubs/howto/getid.html).

Matlab is installed on machines in CASLab .There is an intro guide for students using the CasLab online at www.caslab.queensu.ca/ Any additional course related files (such as Matlab files) that you may need will be placed on the webpage in the Assignments section.

For those preferring to work at home, there may be a student version of Matlab for MS Windows available at the Campus Bookstore for about $150. You can also purchase it on-line from www.mathworks.com.

Student Academic Resources Site

The Arts and Science Academics Resource Website is a website designed to keep you informed of all the resources open for you to use and explore.

Special Requests:

Please let me know if you have any special needs which require special arrangements.