Day 1, Mat360: Numerical Analysis

Today:

Welcome!
- Announcement
  - Departmental picnic: Saturday, 9/17 (venue to be announced...)
- Introductions (4x6 cards)
  1. Name
  2. Where are you from?
  3. Working? If so, where, and how many hours?
  4. Year (Sophomore, etc.)
  5. Major
  6. Why are you taking numerical analysis?
  7. What is your math background/experience?
  8. Something special about yourself.
Some course details:
- The course website may be useful: http://www.nku.edu/~longa/classes/mat360
- You should do the reading in advance of our discussion of each section in class.
- Syllabus (logistics, etc.)
- The plan of attack
Questions?
A brief overview:
- What is numerical analysis? In thise course, according to our authors,
  ...students learn to identify the types of problems that require numerical techniques for their solution and see examples of the error propogation that can occur when numerical methds are applied. They accurately approximate the solution of problems that cannot be solved exactly and learn typical techniques for estimating error bounds for the approximations.
  Have you, in your mathematical careers, encountered any problems that cannot be solved exactly?
- We start with your calculus chops.
  To get us up to speed, I'm going to ask each of you (in pairs) to work on one of the review pices of section 1.1 for Wednesday.
- Numerical issues - representation, errors....
- Root finding; solving equations; iteration
- Data fitting; interpolation
- Numerical integration and differentiation
- Ordinary differential equations
- Software/technology
  - I'll be using Octave somewhat, which is a free MATLAB-like product.
  - I'll be making (limited) use of the TI-92, but you'll be able to use it on the exams, so it's worth using.
  - Software like MATLAB and Mathematica will be available: I'll be working out the details....

Next time: Section 1.1 (calculus flashbacks....)

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