Introduction to Scientific Programming

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiv

   PDF

2. Computational Science

   • Joseph L. Zachary

   Pages 1-9

3. Population Density: Computational Properties of Numbers

   • Joseph L. Zachary

   Pages 11-28

4. Eratosthenes: Significant Digits and Interval Arithmetic

   • Joseph L. Zachary

   Pages 29-43

5. Stairway to Heaven: Accumulation of Roundoff Error

   • Joseph L. Zachary

   Pages 45-61

6. Kitty Hawk: Programmer-Defined Functions

   • Joseph L. Zachary

   Pages 63-75

7. Baby Boom: Symbolic Computation

   • Joseph L. Zachary

   Pages 77-94

8. Ballistic Trajectories: Scientific Visualization

   • Joseph L. Zachary

   Pages 95-115

9. The Battle for Leyte Gulf: Symbolic Mathematics

   • Joseph L. Zachary

   Pages 117-136

10. Old MacDonald’s Cow: Procedural Programming

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 137-159

11. Introduction to C

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 161-176

12. Robotic Weightlifting: Straight-Line Programs

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 177-198

13. Sliding Blocks: Conditionals and Functions

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 199-218

14. Rod Stacking: Designing with Functions

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 219-238

15. Newton’s Beam: Repetition

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 239-259

16. Numerical Integration: Multiple-File Programs

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 261-287

17. Harmonic Oscillation: Structures and Abstract Datatypes

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 289-311

18. Heat Transfer in a Rod: Arrays

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 313-336

19. Visualizing Heat Transfer: Arrays as Parameters

    • Joseph L. Zachary

    Pages 337-359

20. Back Matter

    Pages 361-380

    PDF

"Introduction to Computational Science" was developed over a period of two years at the University of Utah Department of Computer Science in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Undergraduate Computation in Engineering Science (UCES) program. Each chapter begins by introducing a problem and then guiding the student through its solution. The computational techniques needed to solve the problem are developed as necassary, making the motivation for learning the computing alwasy apparent. Each chapter will introduce a single problem that will be used to motivate a single computing concept. The notes currently consist of 15 chapters. The first seven chapters deal with Maple and the last eight with C. The textbook will contain 20 to 30 chapters covering a similar mix of concepts at a finer level of detail.

• Awk
• C programming language
• Numerical integration
• computer
• computer science
• learning
• modeling
• programming
• robot
• visualization

"The shrewd choice of problems, the pace at which these problems are described and solved, and the careful use of language, all result in a text that would be of great use to a beginner." Scientific Computing World

• Department of Computer Science, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA

  Joseph L. Zachary

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