The book is a collection of difficult real-life problems which illustrate some solution techniques in scientific computing. Intended for students of engineering and scientific computing, the book teaches problem solving techniques through the use of examples which are realistic nontrivial problems. Particularly wide range of well-defined problems have been chosen, such as the three body problem, radar, internal field in semiconductors, calibration problem, circuits in power eletronics, and heat flow, to illustrate the methods involved.
The first and the second edition of this book (1993; Zbl 0788.65002 and 1995; Zbl 0823.65003) have been very well received by the scientific community. The third edition has been enlarged by six new chapters, concerning the Newton’s and Kepler’s laws, least squares fit of point clouds, modelling social processes, contour-plots of analytic functions, finding the most accurate location of an aircraft, and computing plane sundials.
Some of the previous chapters were revised. For example, some new ways for solving differential equations have been added and the chapter about the free metal compression has been completely rewritten. All chapters have been adapted to the newest versions of Maple (Version 5 Release 4) and Matlab 5 and all the formulas have been transformed into Latex using the Maple latex-command.