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Summary: NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
KENDALL E. ATKINSON
1. General Introduction. Numerical analysis is the area of mathematics and
computer science that creates, analyzes, and implements algorithms for solving nu-
merically the problems of continuous mathematics. Such problems originate generally
from real-world applications of algebra, geometry and calculus, and they involve vari-
ables which vary continuously; these problems occur throughout the natural sciences,
social sciences, engineering, medicine, and business. During the past half-century, the
growth in power and availability of digital computers has led to an increasing use of
realistic mathematical models in science and engineering, and numerical analysis of
increasing sophistication has been needed to solve these more detailed mathematical
models of the world. The formal academic area of numerical analysis varies from quite
theoretical mathematical studies (e.g. see [5]) to computer science issues (e.g. see [1],
[11]).
With the growth in importance of using computers to carry out numerical pro-
cedures in solving mathematical models of the world, an area known as scientific
computing or computational science has taken shape during the 1980s and 1990s.
This area looks at the use of numerical analysis from a computer science perspective;
see [20], [16]. It is concerned with using the most powerful tools of numerical anal-
ysis, computer graphics, symbolic mathematical computations, and graphical user
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