Mathematical Tools for Real-World Applications

Author: Alexandr Draganov
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262543966
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 307

Book Description
Techniques for applying mathematical concepts in the real world: six rarely taught but crucial tools for analysis, research, and problem-solving. Many young graduates leave school with a solid knowledge of mathematical concepts but struggle to apply these concepts in practice. Real scientific and engineering problems are different from those found in textbooks: they are messier, take longer to solve, and standard solution recipes might not apply. This book fills the gap between what is taught in the typical college curriculum and what a practicing engineer or scientist needs to know. It presents six powerful tools for analysis, research, and problem-solving in the real world: dimensional analysis, limiting cases, symmetry, scaling, making order of magnitude estimates, and the method of successive approximations. The book does not focus on formulaic manipulations of equations, but emphasizes analysis and explores connections between the equations and the application. Each chapter introduces a set of ideas and techniques and then shows how these techniques apply to a series of problems. (Knowledge of algebra and trigonometry, but not calculus, is required.) The final two chapters tie all six techniques together and apply them to two real-world problems: computing the probability of a rare, catastrophic event, and tracking a satellite with a GPS receiver. Readers will learn how to analyze, dissect, and gain insight into the results by using all the techniques presented in earlier chapters—and discover how analysis tools work on problems not concocted for a textbook. The appendix provides solutions to many of the problems found throughout the book. Alexandr Draganov was born and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine; in light of the current war in Ukraine he will donate 100% of his royalties for the first year to support medical and humanitarian efforts there.

Real Analysis with Real Applications

Author: Kenneth R. Davidson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 652

Book Description
Using a progressive but flexible format, this book contains a series of independent chapters that show how the principles and theory of real analysis can be applied in a variety of settings-in subjects ranging from Fourier series and polynomial approximation to discrete dynamical systems and nonlinear optimization. Users will be prepared for more intensive work in each topic through these applications and their accompanying exercises. Chapter topics under the abstract analysis heading include: the real numbers, series, the topology of R^n, functions, normed vector spaces, differentiation and integration, and limits of functions. Applications cover approximation by polynomials, discrete dynamical systems, differential equations, Fourier series and physics, Fourier series and approximation, wavelets, and convexity and optimization. For math enthusiasts with a prior knowledge of both calculus and linear algebra.

Modern Mathematical Tools and Techniques in Capturing Complexity

Author: Leandro Pardo
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3642208533
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 498

Book Description
Real-life problems are often quite complicated in form and nature and, for centuries, many different mathematical concepts, ideas and tools have been developed to formulate these problems theoretically and then to solve them either exactly or approximately. This book aims to gather a collection of papers dealing with several different problems arising from many disciplines and some modern mathematical approaches to handle them. In this respect, the book offers a wide overview on many of the current trends in Mathematics as valuable formal techniques in capturing and exploiting the complexity involved in real-world situations. Several researchers, colleagues, friends and students of Professor María Luisa Menéndez have contributed to this volume to pay tribute to her and to recognize the diverse contributions she had made to the fields of Mathematics and Statistics and to the profession in general. She had a sweet and strong personality, and instilled great values and work ethics in her students through her dedication to teaching and research. Even though the academic community lost her prematurely, she would continue to provide inspiration to many students and researchers worldwide through her published work.

Everyday Calculus

Author: Oscar E. Fernandez
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691175756
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Book Description
A fun look at calculus in our everyday lives Calculus. For some of us, the word conjures up memories of ten-pound textbooks and visions of tedious abstract equations. And yet, in reality, calculus is fun and accessible, and surrounds us everywhere we go. In Everyday Calculus, Oscar Fernandez demonstrates that calculus can be used to explore practically any aspect of our lives, including the most effective number of hours to sleep and the fastest route to get to work. He also shows that calculus can be both useful—determining which seat at the theater leads to the best viewing experience, for instance—and fascinating—exploring topics such as time travel and the age of the universe. Throughout, Fernandez presents straightforward concepts, and no prior mathematical knowledge is required. For advanced math fans, the mathematical derivations are included in the appendixes. The book features a new preface that alerts readers to new interactive online content, including demonstrations linked to specific figures in the book as well as an online supplement. Whether you're new to mathematics or already a curious math enthusiast, Everyday Calculus will convince even die-hard skeptics to view this area of math in a whole new way.

Mathematical Models in Biology

Author: Leah Edelstein-Keshet
Publisher: SIAM
ISBN: 9780898719147
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 629

Book Description
Mathematical Models in Biology is an introductory book for readers interested in biological applications of mathematics and modeling in biology. A favorite in the mathematical biology community, it shows how relatively simple mathematics can be applied to a variety of models to draw interesting conclusions. Connections are made between diverse biological examples linked by common mathematical themes. A variety of discrete and continuous ordinary and partial differential equation models are explored. Although great advances have taken place in many of the topics covered, the simple lessons contained in this book are still important and informative. Audience: the book does not assume too much background knowledge--essentially some calculus and high-school algebra. It was originally written with third- and fourth-year undergraduate mathematical-biology majors in mind; however, it was picked up by beginning graduate students as well as researchers in math (and some in biology) who wanted to learn about this field.

Mathematical Tools for Understanding Infectious Disease Dynamics

Author: Odo Diekmann
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691155399
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 516

Book Description
This book explains how to translate biological assumptions into mathematics to construct useful and consistent models, and how to use the biological interpretation and mathematical reasoning to analyze these models. It shows how to relate models to data through statistical inference, and how to gain important insights into infectious disease dynamics by translating mathematical results back to biology.

Functional Analysis and Numerical Mathematics

Author: Lothar Collatz
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 1483264009
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 494

Book Description
Functional Analysis and Numerical Mathematics focuses on the structural changes which numerical analysis has undergone, including iterative methods, vectors, integral equations, matrices, and boundary value problems. The publication first examines the foundations of functional analysis and applications, including various types of spaces, convergence and completeness, operators in Hilbert spaces, vector and matrix norms, eigenvalue problems, and operators in pseudometric and other special spaces. The text then elaborates on iterative methods. Topics include the fixed-point theorem for a general iterative method in pseudometric spaces; special cases of the fixed-point theorem and change of operator; iterative methods for differential and integral equations; and systems of equations and difference methods. The manuscript takes a look at monotonicity, inequalities, and other topics, including monotone operators, applications of Schauder's theorem, matrices and boundary value problems of monotone kind, discrete Chebyshev approximation and exchange methods, and approximation of functions. The publication is a valuable source of data for mathematicians and researchers interested in functional analysis and numerical mathematics.

Tools and Mathematics

Author: John Monaghan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319023969
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
This book is an exploration of tools and mathematics and issues in mathematics education related to tool use. The book has five parts. The first part reflects on doing a mathematical task with different tools, followed by a mathematician's account of tool use in his work. The second considers prehistory and history: tools in the development from ape to human; tools and mathematics in the ancient world; tools for calculating; and tools in mathematics instruction. The third part opens with a broad review of technology and intellectual trends, circa 1970, and continues with three case studies of approaches in mathematics education and the place of tools in these approaches. The fourth part considers issues related to mathematics instructions: curriculum, assessment and policy; the calculator debate; mathematics in the real world; and teachers' use of technology. The final part looks to the future: task and tool design and new forms of activity via connectivity and computer games.

The Beauty of Numbers in Nature

Author: Ian Stewart
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781782404712
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
Think of a zebra's stripes, the complexities of a spider's web, the uniformity of desert dunes, or the spirals in a sunflower head ... think of a snowflake. The Beauty of Numbers in Nature shows how life on Earth forms the principles of mathematics. Starting with the simplest patterns, each chapter looks at a different kind of patterning system and the mathematics that underlies it. In doing so the book also uncovers some universal patterns, both in nature and man-made, from the basic geometry of ancient Greece to the visually startling fractals that we are familiar with today. Elegantly illustrated, The Beauty of Numbers in Nature is an illuminating and engaging vision of how the apparently cold laws of mathematics find expression in the beauty of nature.

Introduction to the Foundations of Applied Mathematics

Author: Mark H. Holmes
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387877657
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 477

Book Description
FOAM. This acronym has been used for over ?fty years at Rensselaer to designate an upper-division course entitled, Foundations of Applied Ma- ematics. This course was started by George Handelman in 1956, when he came to Rensselaer from the Carnegie Institute of Technology. His objective was to closely integrate mathematical and physical reasoning, and in the p- cess enable students to obtain a qualitative understanding of the world we live in. FOAM was soon taken over by a young faculty member, Lee Segel. About this time a similar course, Introduction to Applied Mathematics, was introduced by Chia-Ch’iao Lin at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Together Lin and Segel, with help from Handelman, produced one of the landmark textbooks in applied mathematics, Mathematics Applied to - terministic Problems in the Natural Sciences. This was originally published in 1974, and republished in 1988 by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, in their Classics Series. This textbook comes from the author teaching FOAM over the last few years. In this sense, it is an updated version of the Lin and Segel textbook.