Study Guide for Burden/Faires Numerical Analysis

by J. Douglas Faires and Richard L. Burden

Includes solutions to representative exercises, including a large number of the type students will find on the actuarial exam.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0534955339
• ISBN13: 9780534955335
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Brooks Cole
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

a great book

A great book for numerical computation study. A lot of methods and examples are listed.

Sergey

Very good service, fast shipping, and it is one the best books to start with. Lots of examples and algorithms for programs.

Good

The first book on the topic that is written in an way that you can understand it. I recommend this book to any frustrated student out there!

It's engineering-oriented, not science-oriented.

There are two aspects for this topic. Would you like the deeper reason why a certain way works? Or would you like to have some impressions with a certain method and try to implement it? Not many books can balance these two aspects very well and Burden's book is more toward the latter. This can be observed that almost every method is with a pseudo code and many numerical examples are given (many are even in a step-by-step way). So if one's background is from science such as math or physics, s/he probably regards this book as a failure. For engineering students, especially undergraduates, this book seems to stay at a good balance since it doesn't get too involved. The pseudo codes are in general well written and helpful. I think it is the strength of this book. There are few books doing better in this aspect than this book. I have one impressive experience about it. Once a graduate student asked me a question and I told him Burden's book can solve his problem. He succeeded very fast and told me he even didn't know how that method works but just did programing based on the pseudo code. For education aspect, of course we don't encourage this kind of working. But for some situations, we need it. On the other hand, this book is rather elementary than advanced. And I think it is intended for undergraduates, not graduates. This book was my textbook of numerical analysis when I was a junior. It also served as a textbook when I lectured to undergraduate students during pursuing my phd degree in engineering. I will still use it as the textbook next time whenever possible. I should give it 4 stars or 4 and a half at most for this book. 5 stars are just out of viewpoint balance.

Very moderate calculus is all it takes

Anyone who thinks this book is too difficult and/or requires a Ph.D. in mathematics has simply never learned any math, such as calculus and linear algebra. In that case, it's indeed easier to simply buy software that implements all the necessary numerical algorithms. This book is not a set of instructions for using a calculator, it is a book for an intelligent reader who thinks creatively and wants to understand the logic behind classical numerical methods.Very transparent, clear, and straight to the point this book is all I needed to quickly learn about the Gaussian quadrature and understanding both the algorithm itself as well as WHY IT WORKS AND DOES SO EFFICIENTLY. Please disregard the previous author's review, as its poisonous tone alone should suggest that he is trying to blame his own mathematical deficiencies upon the authors of this very worthwhile text.