Engineers and other applied scientists are frequently faced with models of complex systems for which no rigorous mathematical solution can be calculated. Numerical approximations are thus frequently used to predict the behavior of such systems, either based on real-life measurements or on the behavior of simpler models.
An engineer's companion for using numerical methods for the solution of complex mathematical problems. It explains the theory behind current numerical methods and shows how to use them in a step-by-step fashion, focusing on interpolation and regression models.
The methods and examples are taken from a wide range of scientific and engineering fields, including chemical and electrical engineering, physics, medicine, and environmental science.
The material is based on several courses for scientists and engineers taught by the authors, and all the exercises and problems are classroom-tested. The software needed is available by way of a freely accessible program library at the University of Milan that provides up-to-date software tools for all the methods described in the book.