MATLAB Guide [Hardcover]

Desmond J. Higham (Author), Nicholas J. Higham (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0898715784 | ISBN-13: 978-0898715781 | Publication Date: March 2005 | Edition: 2

MATLAB is an interactive system for numerical computation that is widely used for teaching and research in industry and academia. It provides a modern programming language and problem solving environment, with powerful data structures, customizable graphics, and easy-to-use editing and debugging tools. This second edition of MATLAB Guide completely revises and updates the best-selling first edition and is more than 30% longer. The book remains a lively, concise introduction to the most popular and important features of MATLAB 7 and the Symbolic Math Toolbox.

Editorial Reviews

Review

‘I use the Higham brothers' MATLAB Guide as a reference for myself and my students in all my applied mathematics and computational science courses. The clarity and usefulness of their writing are major attractions for using their books. Consequently, I look forward to the very much improved second edition, as if that were possible for a much admired book. In particular, the new chapter on case studies looks quite interesting with its useful applications. In addition, new treatments of new functions and features like nested functions, ODE as well as DDE functions will be of great interest.’ Floyd B. Hanson, Ph.D., Professor of Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago

‘MATLAB Guide is an excellent reference book for MATLAB programming. This new version of MATLAB Guide contains material on important changes introduced in MATLAB 7, including single precision arithmetic and anonymous and nested functions. The new edition also contains many more examples; readers will have the advantage of learning MATLAB by essentially looking over the shoulder of two experts. This is a book that all users, new and experienced, will find valuable.’ James Nagy, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Emory University

‘MATLAB Guide, Second Edition, is my new favorite MATLAB reference because it not only teaches MATLAB, it fosters a love for all things related to scientific computation. This well-written book features top notch examples, the latest MATLAB features, and offers MATLAB insights that can't be found anywhere else!’ Steven H. Frankel, Purdue University

‘The second edition of the Higham brothers' MATLAB Guide is both timely and consistent with their record for careful work. New features from MATLAB versions 13 and 14, such as name completion, anonymous and nested functions, and logical variables are described in the new edition. Appendices have been changed and reorganized to update resource and "help" directory structures …There are many new MATLAB functions, such as a fully implicit ODE integrator (ode15i) and a facility for delay differential equations (dde23). Examples have been added to the guide to illustrate these new functions. The authors have done much more than was required for a second edition, but wisely preserved the sometimes delightful examples in the first. Admittedly, their stated objective of providing a ‘compact’ reference for MATLAB has been pushed a bit by adding 100 new pages. However, edition two represents a careful update of the best MATLAB guide available.’ W. Petersen, Seminar for Applied Mathematics, ETH Zurich

Book Description

MATLAB is an interactive system for numerical computation that is widely used for teaching and research in industry and academia. This second edition of MATLAB Guide revises and updates the first, whilst remaining a lively, concise introduction to the important features of MATLAB 7 and the Symbolic Math Toolbox.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 382 pages
• Publisher: SIAM: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics; 2 edition (March 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898715784
• ISBN-13: 978-0898715781
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #283,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Triple C - concise, comprehensive, captivating, November 28, 2002

By 

Harald Hentschke (Tuebingen Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: MATLAB Guide (Paperback)

Matlab Guide is a clearly written, well structured and quite comprehensive account of the capabilities of Matlab. In each chapter, the material explained swiftly progresses from the simple to the more complex, making this book a concise source of information and an excellent reference for the intermediate to advanced Matlab user. The focus is on mathematical topics; the pieces of example code are a nice mixture of playful toys and serious applications. Also, the book contains important hints concerning efficient programming, it has a very agreeable layout, and the citations at the end of each chapter do their job in keeping the reader's mood at a high level. Clearly, absolute beginners may have a hard time working their way through it, and the coverage of isolated topics, like file input/output, is a little meager. However, this is only a minor point. All in all, so far having used matlab primarily for data analysis (electrophysiology) I very much enjoyed and benfited from a fresh look at it from a different perspective.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, Well Structured, November 3, 2000

By 

Philip Clarke (Cambridge, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Matlab Guide (Hardcover)

Following review posted on amazon.co.uk

I liked this book. I spend a good proportion of my working life talking about MATLAB and it is refreshing to find a text which focuses upon what the user wants to do and sees MATLAB as being a means to an end, rather than a reproduction of the reference manual. The book reads well and has a clear organisation. Having a close relationship with MATLAB means I am often asked about books on the subject, and this is one I would be very happy to recommend.

Dr Philip Clarke, The MathWorks Ltd.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A serious book for all users of MATLAB, October 1, 2002

By 

Dr Craig Lucas - See all my reviews

This review is from: MATLAB Guide (Paperback)

This is a book that doesn't ignore that MATLAB is a tool for mathematicians, but at the same doesn't alienate the non-specialist.

Starting with a basic tutorial and continuing with useful short cuts and introductions to script files, functions and graphics this book gives the reader an immediate working knowledge of the basic functions and data structures of MATLAB.

Later chapters address linear algebra (with treatment of eigenvalue problems, linear systems and matrix decompositions) and numerical methods (for differential equations and other problems); both with enough mathematical background and each topic can be accessed independently.

The book finishes with important topics such as optimizing functions, input and output, use of the Symbolic Toolbox and a final chapter with more tricks and tips.

You are left convinced that the authors are extensive users and admirers of this software, and through this book the reader can become the same.