MATH-GA 2010.001 / CSCI-GA 2420-001

Numerical Methods I

Warren Weaver Hall, room 101, Thursdays, 5:10 - 7 pm
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
New York University
Fall Semester, 2014

Lecture materials

Before even the first class, I recommend that you refresh your linear algebra background. A more accessible review of linear algebra can be found in these notes by Jonathan Goodman.
Also get a CIMS computer account and start playing with MATLAB, Linux, etc.

1. (Sept. 4 and 11) Numerical computing

My lecture slides cover basics only. Try also these nice notes by my colleague Jonathan Goodman.

Here are the MATLAB codes for computing the harmonic sum in double and single precision.

You can see the proof of convergence of the Babylonian fixed-point iteration for computing square roots on Wikipedia.

2. (Sept. 11 and 18) Solving square linear systems: GEM and LU factorization

My lecture slides summarize the important points. Here is the MATLAB code MyLU.m.

3. (Sept. 18 and 25) Nonsquare and sparse linear systems

My lecture slides summarize the important points but sparse matrices and iterative methods are a huge field and you should read more about them in the suggested readings, and ask questions. In some sense sparse matrices are the most important in practice today.

4. (Oct. 2) Eigenvalue problems

Review linear algebra regarding eigenvalues. My lecture slides focus on the important points: conditioning, the power method, and the basic QR iteration. Here is a nice review by Maysum Panju of the power and QR methods and their links, and a summary of why QR works.

5. (Oct. 9) Singular value problems

My lecture slides focus on the important points: do the homework to try it out.

6. (Oct. 16) Solving nonlinear equations

 A key algorithm to understand is Newton's method.

7. (Oct. 23) Mathematical Programming (Optimization)

We will do a whirl-wind tour of optimization to introduce you to the basic concepts.

8. (Oct. 30th) Polynomial Interpolation

We focus on low-order polynomial interpolation and piecewise polynomial interpolation in 1D, 2D and 3D, and defer spectral approximation to the next two lectures.

9. (Nov 6th and Nov 13th) Orthogonal Polynomials

We will talk about Legendre and Chebyshev polynomials, preparing us to discuss the Fourier basis and Gaussian quadrature.

10. (Nov 20th) Fourier and Wavelet Transforms

This will discuss Fourier Transforms, including the FFT algorithm, and briefly introduces wavelets.

11. (Dec. 4th) Numerical Integration

We discuss quadrature rules in low dimensions.

12. (Dec. 11th) Monte Carlo Methods

Review some basic probability concepts. For more details, take a look at these notes by Jonathan Goodman.