Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.

Numerical Recipes 3rd Edition: The Art of Scientific Computing 3rd Edition

3.7 out of 5 stars 28 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0521880688
ISBN-10: 0521880688
Why is ISBN important?
ISBN
This bar-code number lets you verify that you're getting exactly the right version or edition of a book. The 13-digit and 10-digit formats both work.
Scan an ISBN with your phone
Use the Amazon App to scan ISBNs and compare prices.
Trade in your item
Get a $31.20
Gift Card.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Buy used On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
$54.45 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
Buy new On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
$89.06 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
More Buying Choices
43 New from $67.49 41 Used from $54.45
Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Prime Student Free%20Two-Day%20Shipping%20for%20College%20Students%20with%20Amazon%20Student


The Numberlys Best Books of the Year So Far
$89.06 FREE Shipping. In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
click to open popover

Frequently Bought Together

  • Numerical Recipes 3rd Edition: The Art of Scientific Computing
  • +
  • Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers (Dover Books on Mathematics)
Total price: $103.09
Buy the selected items together

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested In These Sponsored Links

  (What's this?)

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
New York Times best sellers
Browse the New York Times best sellers in popular categories like Fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Books and more. See more

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 1256 pages
  • Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 3 edition (September 10, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0521880688
  • ISBN-13: 978-0521880688
  • Product Dimensions: 7 x 1.8 x 10 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,407 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested In These Sponsored Links

  (What's this?)

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

By Ken Williams on December 1, 2009
Format: Hardcover
As other reviewers have mentioned, this is basically an annotated code repository of solutions to specific algorithmic problems, and the algorithms are good. However, if you want to *use* these solutions in your products, forget it. You'll need to pay (thousands of dollars per year, potentially) for the privilege of an institutional license, and even then you can't incorporate any of the algorithms into a commercial software product. The code is therefore useless. Worse than useless, actually, because if a company owns the book and then uses an algorithm contained in it - even if derived from a different source - it runs the risk of getting sued for licensing violations because they've seen the book. No thanks.

[...]

If the authors went with some kind of traditional open-source license instead, that would be terrific. Right now, it looks like financial greed has gotten in the way of the dissemination of good ideas.
6 Comments 140 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover
People, stop buying and using this book! The copyright is prohibitive. It is not that they are greedy and want to make money from it. They won't sell you the rights to use any of these algorithms in commercial products, period. They are just stupid.

And don't give your code to a friend or coworker. You just violated the copyright.

Several coworkers have given me simulations with NR code buried in it. I can't use them. It is ILLEGAL!

Stop! Stop! Stop!

Use the GNU Scientific Library. It is free. And legal! And there is a free book on it. Use anything but NR.
4 Comments 159 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
The license on the code in this book makes it almost completely worthless. The content of the book itself is excellent. The author's descriptions of the algorithms are valuable (and the reason for the second star), but the terms of the license prevent the source code from being used for anything practical. Instead, a reader will have to search for similar algorithms in MKL or GSL.
Comment 7 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I own NR in C, NR in C++ 2nd ed, and also this 3rd edition. The C++ coding style in the 3rd edition is way better than that in NR C++ 2nd edition.

However, from the beginning of this book to the end of this book, you can see the following type of codes:

double x, y;
....
....
if (x-y == 0.0){
....}
else {
....}

How do you feel about this coding style? By comparing a double precision floating numbers or any floating numbers with 0.0?! If you are coding in this way, basically you will run into numerical stability issues sooner or later. This is a typical example of codes written by programmers with no industry experience!

It is OK to use this book as a dictionary, but if you want to copy all the codes line by line or just load them directly from the CDROM version of the codes, you need to be very careful about this coding style! This is just a tip of an iceberg... Who should own the copyright if you found a bug and sending the authors your fix?
1 Comment 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
One of a few programming books I think all software engineers should have on their shelf. I find the algorithms in C a bit more readable than those from the C++ addition. This book can be a foundation for many things... scientific computing, optimization, and artificial intelligence come to mind.
Comment 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover
I really do not understand why this is still popular. The codes are buggy and slow. I do not think anybody can use it for real high performance computing. The book is OK for educational purposes. My suggestion is go for BLAS, LAPACK (MKL is the best in the market, but not free. ACML is a free one from AMD.) or GSL.
2 Comments 19 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover
This book is absolutely terrible. The code is exactly what you would expect from academic researchers: Unreadable, abusing the language and not considering edge-cases.

Read a damn style-guide ffs.
Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This book is a monster. As a C enthusiast I am confidant I'll use this book for years to come.
Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Numerical Recipes 3rd Edition: The Art of Scientific Computing
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
This item: Numerical Recipes 3rd Edition: The Art of Scientific Computing