I am starting this blog to help UNDERGRADUATES with their queries on Numerical Methods for Engineers. I have been teaching Numerical Methods for the last 20 years and I get interesting queries and questions while I am teaching, when students come to see me during my office hours, or the email sent at midnight before the assignment is due.
I am keeping a log of what students ask me and will note the answers to their queries here. I am sure that students elsewhere have similar questions when they take a course in Numerical Methods.
The diversity of the course is quite evident –
- The course is taught to different engineering majors – mechanical, civil, chemical, industrial and electrical.
- Some teachers emphasize the numerical methods while others spend more time on solving physical problems, and a few may include numerical analysis.
- The programming tools are diverse including FORTRAN (yes the language is alive and well), Basic, C, Java, or computational packages such as MATLAB, MATHEMATICA, MathCAD, and Maple.
With funding from NSF since 2002, we have developed web-based resources for a course in Numerical Methods. The inclusion of the blog is not part of the funded proposals but we think that this mode of Web 2.0 dissemination is critical in keeping the conversation going on. Although what I am doing here can be offered via a static website, the widgets offered by blogging softwares are indispensable. The widgets I like are categorizing, tagging and RSS Feeds.
We want to reach as many people as possible and build a community which may be temporary to students who are taking a course in Numerical Methods, permanent to instructors and people who use numerical methods in their work. But one thing is certain, temporary or permanent, visitors will leave their imprint on this resource.
This post brought to you by Holistic Numerical Methods: Numerical Methods for the STEM undergraduate at http://nm.mathforcollege.com