000 02705nam a2200337 4500
001 OTLid0000082
003 MnU
005 20201105133255.0
006 m o d s
008 180907s2009 mnu o 0 0 eng d
040 _aMnU
_beng
_cMnU
050 4 _aQA76
100 1 _aDowney, Allen
_eauthor
245 0 0 _aPhysical Modeling in MATLAB
_cAllen Downey
264 2 _bOpen Textbook Library
264 1 _bGreen Tea Press
300 _a1 online resource
490 0 _aOpen textbook library.
505 0 _a1 Variables and Values -- 2 Scripts -- 3 Loops -- 4 Vectors -- 5 Functions -- 6 Zero-finding -- 7 Functions of vectors -- 8 Ordinary Differential Equations -- 9 Systems of ODEs -- 10 Second-order systems -- 11 Optimization and Interpolation -- 12 Vectors as vectors
520 0 _aMost books that use MATLAB are aimed at readers who know how to program. This book is for people who have never programmed before. As a result, the order of presentation is unusual. The book starts with scalar values and works up to vectors and matrices very gradually. This approach is good for beginning programmers, because it is hard to understand composite objects until you understand basic programming semantics. But there are problems: The MATLAB documentation is written in terms of matrices, and so are the error messages. To mitigate this problem, the book explains the necessary vocabulary early and deciphers some of the messages that beginners find confusing. Many of the examples in the first half of the book are non-standard MATLAB. I address this problem in the second half by translating the examples into a more idiomatic style. The book puts a lot of emphasis on functions, in part because they are an important tool for controlling program complexity, and also because they are useful for working with MATLAB tools like fzero and ode45. I assume that readers know calculus, differential equations, and physics, but not linear algebra. I explain the math as I go along, but the descriptions might not be enough for someone who hasn't seen the material before. There are small exercises within each chapter, and a few larger exercises at the end of some chapters.
542 1 _fFree Documentation License (GNU)
546 _aIn English.
588 0 _aDescription based on print resource
650 0 _aComputer Science
_vTextbooks
710 2 _aOpen Textbook Library
_edistributor
856 4 0 _uhttps://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/82
_zAccess online version
999 _c19520
_d19520