Customer Reviews

Excel for Scientists and Engineers

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I've owned copies of both editions of William Orvis's wonderful book and if he revises it again, I'll be first in line for a copy of the third edition. He begins with a general overview of Excel as a scientific and engineering calculation and graphing tool, assuming very little knowledge of Excel and only basic undergrad math skills. It's no book for "dummies," but anyone of reasonable intelligence and clarity of mind will have no difficulty in following what he says here. There are lots of well-explained examples, and the CD which comes with the book makes it easy to reproduce them without laborious data entry. Then he gives a brief survey of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) -- VBA light, but enough to do many useful things. Next come chapters on data base functions, curve fitting, and series models. After a chapter on numerical differentiation and integration in general, the author deals with techniques for finding roots of nonlinear equations, solving sets of linear and nonlinear equations, and integrating ordinary and partial differential equations. While the book is oriented toward Excel 7 for Win 95, no one is likely to find it at all difficult to apply what it says directly in working with later versions or those running under other OSs. There are lots of topics I'd like to see added, or treated in greater depth, but the author could scarcely have covered more in a single 500-page book, and I have no quarrel with the balance he has chosen. None of the other science- or engineering-oriented Excel books even approach this one in value and coverage -- I've read them all. Excel is no substitute for Mathematica or even MathCad, but this book gave me an entirely different appreciation for the strengths it does offer for analyzing data. This is a book I recommend not only to engineers and "hard" scientists but to anyone with a need for rigorous data analysis.

This book is one of a kind. Scientists, engineers and students in the field are already using Excel for data analysis yet Orvis' sourcebook provides a one-flip reference to all the implemented functions of Excel. The second edition features illustration of built-in science and engineering tools and covers Excel for Window 95, Windows 3.1, and Mac.

Reader will learn not only how to calculate and plot simple equations but how to perform curve fitting; calculate statistics, numerical derivatives, and integrals; access external databases; and solve systems of equations and one- and two-dimensional differential equations. The book also explains how to create graphics and how to use the built-in Visual Basic for Applications programming language to extend the capabilities of the Excel worksheets.

Orvis himself is a scientist. The book is based on real uses of a spreadsheet as an engineering tool. Many of the problems were actually solved by Orvis using other techniques before he realized the full potential of the Excel spreadsheets. Therefore the book itself helps solve real problems, not just a textbook problems. This proves to be very helpful for those working in the lab and work on data analysis.

The book assume basic working knowledge with Excel; such as moving around the cells and inserting data. It assumes basic undergrad math. This is highly recommended for scientists and engineers.

I bought this book hoping to learn more about macros and visual basic. I learned more than I expected. My colleagues have been using Excel longer than I have and wonder how I know so much about Excel. I wish I had this book when I was in engineering college. Knowing the solver Add-in would have earned me a higher grade guaranteed.

Never realized what a powerful analytical tool I had with Excel! The author does a great job of teaching the reader who follows the examples and exercises hands-on. And I've only worked examples througth to the 4th chapter! Very recommendable for anyone doing number crunching and engaged in "what-if?" scenario analysis.

An excellent book that details many features I did not know Excel had. Most of the examples are geared toward electrical engineering and astronomy ( the author's background), but that's OK. The processes such as numeric integration and solving differential equations are generic to any scientific field.

I found this book very helpful. There are a number of features of EXCEL that are useful and are introduced in a sample problem context where you can see how it works. A trivial example is the use of ctrl + with a chart to produce a chart based on the actual data and not the spreadsheet, saving tons of memory. I haven't found this trick anywhere else. This book also provides a nice introduction to the basics of numerical methods, showing how they work and how EXCEL can be used with them. He shows how to use visual basic as well, and provides some useful examples. The author also provides references to other books and programs that complement his discussion. This is the most useful EXCEL book that I have found. It is not entirely up to date, but that is not a real problem.

This book covers subjects thoroughly. Spending less than 15 minutes with this book answered a question I have researched for over a year. After reading this book, I now have a better understanding of how Excel can help me in many mathematical as well as real-life situations. The author clearly details the steps needed for each application.

William j.orvis wrote a fanstantic book for all level. This book is especially useful to students who want to do a science report. Methods like curve fitting using linear regression, least square etc.. This is useful for people who do not have access to customise scientific program

This is THE book for teaching or learning how to apply Excel to science and engineering problems. I have tried them all in teaching courses over the past 10 years. None are as clear, authoritative, or instructive.

The book is 10 years old. I will again use it for a course this Spring (2007), but the thread connecting it to current Excel reality is getting stretched thin. Please, please, please write a revsion !!!