Computer Science 121 Scientific Computing Winter 2014

Who Are You?

How Will You Do in this Course?

Textbook Based on Matlab Developed over 4 Macalester College Barely in print; order from We'll cover Ch. 1-8 in 1 st 6 weeks, then various remaining chapters based on interest/progress.

Purpose 1.“To teach you to write effective computer programs. 2.To introduce you to some of the main methodological areas of scientific computation and provide you with the tools you need to carry out computational tasks you are likely to encounter in research.” from cs121/policies.pdf

Purpose ● Scientific computing (???) : Computing (programming) for the sciences ● But skills are transferable to general programming work ● Difficulties – Absolute precision in specifying instructions – Considering full range of circumstances of how a program will be used – Considering how your assumptions may not be shared by the user – Systematically tracking down bugs – Breaking down complicated problems into simple(r) sub-problems (continued from Kaplan PDF)

Matlab ● An integrated programming and graphical environment ● Interpreted : interactive; get answer immediately ● Also supports saving and loading large programs ● Student version available for $100 from ● Free, open-source “equivalent” : Octave

Matlab ● Issues 1) Matlab vs. a) higher-level (Excel / SPSS) package b) lower-level (C++ / Java / Python) language 2) Matlab vs. a similar package (Mathematica, Maple) 3) Matlab vs. Python

1) Abstraction ● Recipe analogy: How to make chocolate-chip cookies? ● High-level (Excel / SPSS) version: 1.Make chocolate-chip dough 2.Bake cookies ● Too abstract

1) Abstraction ● Low-level (Java / C++) version: 1.Drive to store 2.Buy: dozen eggs, 1 lb. flour, 1lb. sugar, 1qt. milk, 1 bag chocolate chips, 1 lb. butter, 1 lb. lard 3.Drive home 4.Turn oven dial to 375° F. 5.Take out bowl, measuring cup 6.Measure ½ cup lard, ½ cup butter 7.Put butter, lard into bowl 8.Stir butter, lard, clockwise 20 times, counter-clockwise 20 times 9.Measure 1 cup flour 10. Add flour to bowl 11. Stir clockwise 10 times,... ● Too concrete

1) Abstraction ● Recipe analogy: How to make a cake? ● “Matlab” version: 1. Mix ½ cup lard, ½ cup butter, getting them good and creamy. 2. Mix in 1 cup flour, ¾ cup brown sugar, ¾ cup white sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tsp. vanilla, and ½ tsp. baking soda. 3. Work this over until it is thoroughly mixed, then blend in 1 ¼ cup more flour. 4. Bake at 375 degrees 8-10 minutes. (

2) Matlab vs. Mathematica / Maple ● Features — Matlab: Numerical (linear algebra) — Maple, Mathematica: Symbolic (calculus)... Matlab is excellent for manipulating data, or dealing with any sort of matrix calculations.. From my experience Mathematica is ideal when it comes to symbolics such as differentiation and integration. I've seen a few cases where Mathematica blows Maple out of the water when one compares the types of integrals they can evaluate. Maple and Matlab have the best graphics in my opinion. In both of them you are allowed to rotate 3D graphics and zoom in on the spot (2D) in realtime. In Mathematica things are little more complicated, which often [elicits] frustration. With Mathematica, in order to zoom, you must change the window that you are plotting with. from t45208_Matlab_vs_Maple_vs_Mathematica.html:

3) Matlab vs. Python ● Python: General-purpose language popular in CS ● Interpreted ● Free, open-source ● SciPy (Matplotlib): Matlab-like packages ● Good support for parallel / high-performance computing ● Matlab still dominates in some fields (neuroscience, geology, engineering); Python gaining ground in others (biology) and overseas