Introduction to Numerical Analysis
CS412 - Spring 2006

Class Schedule

Day: MWF
Time: 1:20-2:10pm
Location: cs 1221
Class e-mail list: compsci412-1-s06@lists.wisc.edu
Archived Class E-mail List

Instructor

Laura Goadrich
Office: cs 5390
e-mail: goadl@cs.wisc.edu
Office Hours: MW 2:10-3:10pm (or by appointment)

Teaching Assistants

Akanksha Baid
Office: 1307 CS
e-mail: baid@cs.wisc.edu
Office Hours: TR 2:30-3:30pm

Giordano Fusco
Office: 5364 CS
e-mail: fusco@cs.wisc.edu
Office Hours: M 9:45-10:45am & F 9-10am

Announcements

• I will hold my final office hour on Monday, May 15th, from 8-9am. At this time you can look at your final exam. At 9am, all grades will be finalized.
• The cut-off scores for your final grade will be posted under the Announcements section on Sunday afternoon on May 14th. Note your final grades will be available from Learn@UW at that time.
• Office hours during final exam week will be on Tuesday and Thursday from 12-1pm and Wednesday from 1-2pm in my office. Note if you have any grading questions about the past homeworks, you should contact either Giordano or Akanksha to settle the dispute by Friday May 12th.
• The final exam is May 12th at 7:45am in cs1240. It covers the last half of the semester. Here is a list of exam topics.
• The final day for midterm corrections is Wednesday, March 29th. For corrections, see the person who graded the problem, as you do in homeworks.
• Akanksha will not be available during her Tuesday office hours on March 7th. If you have any questions, Laura will be available in her office on Tuesday from 10-noon and 4-5pm.
• Here is a list of the main topics that you should be familiar with for the midterm.
• Note that you are not allowed to submit scanned or handwritten work for grading. Your homeworks should be submitted in pdf via your handin directory (as specified under the homework link). Any scanned or handwritten work will not be graded.
• Instructions to obtain information from a removable storage device (like a floppy or flash drive) have been posted under the FAQ.
• Note that the date and time for the midterm has been modified. See the "syllabus" section for more information.
• In order to use the Learn@UW system to post your grades, the grading scale has been modified slightly- see the "grading" section for details.
• Information about remotely logging to the CS lab from a home computer has been posted under the "FAQ" section.
• There is a UNIX Orientation session hosted by the CS lab each semester for new and novice UNIX users. The times for the orientation can be found at CSDocs. Students new to UNIX can purchase the CS 1000 handout at the DoIT Tech Store. You can also find the handout online.

Course Description

Catalog description:This course is an introduction to algorithms used by engineers and scientists to find solutions (interpolation points and function coefficients) to continuous problems. Some of the problems we will focus on include non-linear equations, polynomial interpolation, numerical differentiation and integration, solution of linear systems, least-squares methods, and numerical solution of ordinary differential equations.

Prerequisites: Math 222 and either CS 240 or Math 234, and CS 302, or equivalent, and knowledge of matrix algebra.

Informal description:This course assumes that you know how to program a computer in a high-level language (HLL) such as C++ or Java. While we will be using MATLAB, you will be given pseudocode in a high-level language. This course will give you an understanding of how continuous problems can be approximated within a given error. You will learn about the types of errors and level of accuracy that each algorithm generates. This will give you insight into selecting the appropriate algorithms for your computational demands.