of School Engineering and Applied Science University of California, Los Angeles
Electrical Engineering 103 Applied Numerical Computing
An Introduction to Numerical Analysis and Computing for Engineers and Computer Scientists
Lecture Notes by
Stephen E. Jacobsen, Professor Fall Quarter, 2007
Copyright 2007 by Stephen E. Jacobsen
GENERAL REMARKS TO THE STUDENT The subject matter of this course may be required by your major (Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Science & Engineering, Electrical Engineering) and covers material to which every engineer should be introduced. As such, this course is essentially an "engineer's general education" course. In particular, engineers need to be introduced to the facts that how one writes code and the algorithms one uses may have major impacts upon the correctness of the results for most areas of engineering and scientific computing. Indeed, one of the goals of this course is to point out that engineering and scientific computation on a computer is "tricky business" and that every engineer must be somewhat skeptical at all times when it comes to accepting the output of computer programs dealing with engineering calculations and algorithms. Indeed, it is the ethical responsibility of every engineer and computer scientist to be so informed. Each undergraduate major of SEAS is accredited by the Accreditation for Board Engineering and Technology (ABET). The two majors of the Computer Science Department, CS and CS&E, are also accredited by the Computer Science Advisory Board (CSAB). Accreditation is a major benefit for SEAS students for both professional engineering licensing and for employment. ABET strongly recommends that students take mathematics courses beyond basic calculus. Numerical analysis is one of those advanced subjects that ABET strongly recommends and the faculty of SEAS agrees. It is for this reason that the faculty of your respective departments has decided to require this course. Chemical Engineering students are required to take somewhat similar subject matter in a course given by the Chemical Engineering Department. Mechanical Engineering students are cursorily introduced to the subject in the context of a FORTRAN course. Numerical analysis and numerical computing are vast subjects and a one-quarter course can, at best, introduce you to only a few major topics and to help you develop a "feel" for the subject and its importance for engineering computations. As such, a certain amount of computer work will be required on homework and in one or two larger projects. Towards this end, you should become familiar with SEASnet's resources: http://www.seas.ucla.edu/seasnet. Also, become familiar with the class website at http://www.eeweb.ee.ucla.edu .