Customer Reviews

Numerical Mathematics and Computing

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I was a teaching assistant for an introductory numerical mathematics course which used this text. It's a satisfactory text (nothing special) if you already have a basis in numerical analysis, however students which have no foundation struggle severely.

The problem stems from the fact that the authors, Kincaid and Cheney, first wrote a graduate level numerical analysis text and then they created this text based on the content from the first book. Needless to say, this "introductory" text makes several [invalid] assumptions about the introductory student's abilities.

It's frustrating to see students struggle because numerical analysis is really not that difficult -- but they have to be taught the procedures clearly. This text does not have enough example problems and the ones they included do not describe the steps thoroughly or the logic behind performing them. The text does include a large quantity of homework problems, but the selected answers in the back of the book provide only answers and no explanation of how the answer was arrived at.

Anyways, if you're still going to buy this book its probably becausre you're a student. Hang in there. It's really not that hard but seek help from other textbooks if needed.

This is a good, basic, undergraduate text covering scientific computing. It gives a nice, broad overview of some basic topics, problems for the student to solve, and is generic as far as programming languages are concerned.

That being said, for my use this book was not detailed enough and failed to go into sufficient detail into many different areas (such as the eigenproblem). It is definantly an undergrad text and would be an excellent choice for a 300-level math or computer science class, it also provides a good general background in numerical computing. In that regard this book is a fine choice.

The description "it looks like they cut the 2nd edition in half and labeled it '4th edition'" would be approximately correct if you talk about the 2nd edition of the much more advanced text by approximately the same authors, "Numerical Analysis: Mathematics of Scientific Computing" by Kincaid, Cheney and Cheney, which was published in 1995 and does conform to the description "covered so much in detail". If you expect graduate level coverage, that is the book to get, not this one, which is an undergraduate text, and aimed at students that don't major in math.

I am a mathematics professor at a liberal art college. This is one of the few textbooks that is suitable for our students who are mathematics majors or related sciences majors. The approach is mathematical and computer science oriented, rather than cookbook type or overwhemingly applied. I and my colleages use this text and recommend it.

The true test of a textbook's value is whether it can be used to learn the material without the benefit of a thorough and clear lecturer. Considering a textbook's value when supplemented with a good professor isn't proper, because the professor can fill in the book's gaps, making it harder to tell whether the book is good or not.

"Numerical Mathematics and Computing" fails miserably at this test of value. The explanations are very short and feel incomplete, leaving students unsure of how to find the correct answers. The examples which are given to clarify the material are few and far between, and good examples are practically non-exsistant. In general, they skip right over the finer details of how to work through problems, and assume the reader understands what's going on. This might work if the student had already been introduced to the material, or if they had a good professor to fill in the gaps, but that shouldn't be assumed. It certainly seems like it was when this book was written.

I would absolutely discourage anyone from getting this book!

This book is riddled with typographical errors that end up making examples and pseudocode very confusing. Sometimes it's a simple plus or minus sign, but once an entire part of a formula was left out, and at another point the wrong graph is shown. The stuff that is actually correct isn't explained as well as it could be, either.

I had to use this book for an undergraduate Numerical Analysis class. I'm a Computer Science major with a math minor and this is my last semester. I found this book to be horrible when coupled with an instructor that is equally as horrible. The explainations are too short and lack examples, the problems in each chapter are hard to solve based on the chapter's explaination; they seem to deviate far beyond what was explained in the corresponding chapter. There are some formulas and theorem's mentioned that have no examples to show how they work.

The book is not totally at fault in my case. I also have a horrible instructor and have to rely soley on this book to learn the material. This book just makes it very, very hard to teach myself. My only praise of the book is it's pseudocode for implementing the methods explained. They can easily be used to program them in C++ or other languages.

Overall the book is very confusing but it is still far better than my instructor who doesn't explain anything or answer questions.

Our professor for numerical analysis at the university told us to get this book because it covered so much in detail. He has the 2nd edition for some time now. I just got my 4th edition and it looks like they cut the 2nd edition in half and labeled it '4th edition'. Get another book instead.

After two weeks They didn't have a stock of quality so they gave me a discount for any other book and a full refund