Numerical Recipes in Fortran: The Art of Scientific Computing [Hardcover]

William H. Press (Author), Brian P. Flannery (Author), Saul A. Teukolsky (Author), William T. Vetterling (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 052143064X | ISBN-13: 978-0521430647 | Publication Date: September 25, 1992 | Edition: 2

This is the greatly revised and greatly expanded Second Edition of the hugely popular Numerical Recipes: The Art of Scientific Computing. The product of a unique collaboration among four leading scientists in academic research and industry Numerical Recipes is a complete text and reference book on scientific computing. In a self-contained manner it proceeds from mathematical and theoretical considerations to actual practical computer routines. With over 100 new routines bringing the total to well over 300, plus upgraded versions of the original routines, this new edition remains the most practical, comprehensive handbook of scientific computing available today. Highlights of the new material include: -A new chapter on integral equations and inverse methods -Multigrid and other methods for solving partial differential equations -Improved random number routines - Wavelet transforms -The statistical bootstrap method -A new chapter on "less-numerical" algorithms including compression coding and arbitrary precision arithmetic. The book retains the informal easy-to-read style that made the first edition so popular, while introducing some more advanced topics. It is an ideal textbook for scientists and engineers and an indispensable reference for anyone who works in scientific computing. The Second Edition is availabe in FORTRAN, the traditional language for numerical calculations and in the increasingly popular C language.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a phenomenal effort. Virtualy anyone involved in scientific computing, from engineers, to physicists, to social scientists, will find information and methods applicable to their specific needs, or helpful subroutines that can be inserted into the reader's existing programs....No matter what language you program in, these packages are classics, both as a textbook or reference. They are an essential and valuable addition to the academic, professional, or personal library." Internet

"Anyone who writes (or is curious about) computer codes to solve many of the common numerical problems in science and engineering will want to own this large book. The writing is authoritative (two of the authors have published first-rate research in writing code for astrophysics problems), but never dull. Flashes of humor appear at regular intervals, in the appropriate places, and as hard as it may be to believe, this book is interesting even as casual reading! I recommend this book highly, and both the authors and the publisher are to be commended for an outstanding piece of work." Paul J. Nahin, Science Books and Films

"This encyclopedic book should be read (or at least owned) not only by those who must roll their own numerical methods, but by all who must use prepackaged programs." Mike Holderness, New Scientist

"This reviewer knows of no other single source of so much material of this nature. Highly recommended." R.J. Wernick, Choice

"...will be appreciated by anyone involved in the numerical solution of engineering problems....the authors have successfully blended tutorial discussion, fundamental mathematics, explanation of algorithms, and working computer programs into neatly packaged chapters covering all of the basic topics in numerical methods. What sets this book apart, in the reviewer's opinion, is the versatility of the book....indispensable." Ben H. Thacker, Applied Mechanics Review

"If you already have the first edition, will you want or need the second? The answer is a definitive yes....a book that should be on your desk (not your shelf) if you have any interest in the analysis of data or the formulation of models....The second edition contains numerous additions of important material, such as a section on Cholesky decomposition (which is critical for simulating multivariate distributions), discussion of the bootstrap method, and the addition and expansion of other numerical methods too numerous to mention here." Lyle W. Konigsberg, Human Biology

"...a valuable resource for those with a specific need for numerical software. The routines are prefaced with lucid, self-contained explanations....highly recommended for those who require the use and understanding of numerical software." Elizabeth Greenwell Yanik, SIAM Review

"...the second [edition] expands the scope of coverage and continues the standard of excellence achieved in the first. If you were to have only a single book on numerical methods, this is the one I would recommend." Edmund Miller, IEEE Computational Science & Engineering

Book Description

This is the revised and expanded second edition of the hugely popular Numerical Recipes: the Art of Scientific Computing. The product of a unique collaboration among four leading scientists in academic research and industry, Numerical Recipes is a complete text and reference book on scientific computing.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 933 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (September 25, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052143064X
• ISBN-13: 978-0521430647
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #620,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #22 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > Fortran

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Proprietary source the Achilles' heel for non-students, December 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Numerical Recipes in Fortran: The Art of Scientific Computing (Hardcover)

I first bought this text in 1994 while doing scientific programming for graduate school work. A fellow graduate student had suggested I use an undocumented routine that (I later discovered) came from Numerical Recipes (NR). I was impressed enough with NR's presentation of ideas that I also bought the example book ISBN 0521437210 (which I've hardly cracked since) and a diskette of source code (which cost as much as the book but worth it). I was able to do a lot of basic research quickly with NR code, and I still occasionally use NR's routines.

The authors have certainly done a good job assimilating a lot of material. Since other reviewers have done well to highlight the importance and utility of this landmark book, there is no need to repeat those sentiments here. However, to this title's detriment, the authors consider their book to be a proprietary library of source code more valuable than the explanatory text discussing it (one can in fact download the text on-line though it's hardly worth the hassle). This perception is ironic since the authors confess that "the lineage of many programs in common circulation is often unclear" (p.xviii), and many details of presentation, ideas, and algorithms are clearly "borrowed" from other excellent (some now out-of-print) numerical methods books or journals.

I often wondered why NR routines occasionally adopted bizarre and/or obviously inefficient programming structures - over time I decided that this was probably done to make these algorithms appear as so not to clearly violate other published material. As a student, NR's legal disclaimers regarding derivative works (p.xvi) never bothered me and I was willing to overlook the sometimes unpolished source code insofar as it functioned properly. However, as a professional I now find the lack of fair-use provisions on the uncompiled source way too restrictive to rely on these routines in good conscience (I have to buy another textbook or license for every soft copy or machine upon which the source code resides!). I suspect this policy ultimately hurts NR's textbook sales: it would be nice to able to use and pass along the source code between professional colleagues without restriction because most would certainly buy (if they don't already own) the textbook to understand what the source does (just as I did). Source code used in scientific programming is practically worthless without proper documentation, and there's no better documentation than a full length textbook!

I have since expanded my numerical methods library to other references supporting true public-domain codes. With an expanded basis of comparison, I regret to say that I am becoming less and less impressed with NR's implementations and explanations. I am finding many of NR's algorithms to be inefficient or unnecessarily approximate, and - on rare occasion - buggy. There have been quite a few bugs uncovered over the years, and the NR web site has done a good job of keeping track of them (although I know of at least one bug uncorrected by NR to this day).

This book is excellent for students wanting a good reference for quick and dirty types of analyses or scientific computing. Professional programmers, scientists, engineers, specialists or analysts performing software development for laboratory or scientific research would be well advised to reference this title, but ultimately they will likely need to rely other resources if they require efficient and/or unrestricted (public-domain) source codes for their work.

(P.S. - A reviewer elsewhere noted that the "quality of the binding was terrible" and I've also found this to be the case. My hardcover is literally had to be taped on after a few years of use.)

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear explanations with good code, May 29, 2000

By 

johare4 (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Numerical Recipes in Fortran: The Art of Scientific Computing (Hardcover)

I converted the authors' multigrid program on p. 870 to Visual Basic and ran it in EXCEL. Comparison with exact solutions for special cases of Poisson's equation showed it to be accurate to micro percents in less time than it takes to write the spreadsheet (a second or so). The explanation of the program in the text is clearer than specialist discussions like Wessling (An Introduction to Multigrid Methods), but doesn't contain theoretical analysis of convergence rates. Personally, I find it more persuasive to plot the errors vs number of cycles, number of smoothings etc. than to read theoretical analysis.

The authors also compare various methods and give practical advice about which methods to use. Specialist texts on numerical methods aren't much good in this regard, being hung up on methods where it is easy to prove convergence rates.

Bottom line: Good code, good qualitative discussion, good comparisons of methods.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A set of numerical routines that may solve your problems, February 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Numerical Recipes in Fortran: The Art of Scientific Computing (Hardcover)

This book provides a brief description of a series of numerical methods, and their respective fortran codes. It is a toolbox for anyone interested in apply the numerical method rather than work on it.

Most of the routines are reliable, even though they are not state of the art. It is a good aquisition. Naturally, the disk is a must if you do not want type (or mistype) the source codes.