Newton Method

[Duane Hess]

Namir:

Hi. Been thinking & thinking of the name of the book, Googling, not getting anywhere. The title you suggested & Carnahan, along with other authors rung a bell.

It seems the name was very similar to "Applied Numerical Methods" but had "with FORTRAN" or some other addition implying digital computation. However, I recall FORTRAN being in the title.

It was a paperback, about 3/8-inch thick, smaller size (i.e. 5" or 6" x 7" to 8"), had white, green & grey on the cover. Seems the bottom half of the cover had green/grey or grey/white "streaks". Sorta like sloppy painted semi-runny vertical lines. Don't recall the top half, other than that's where the title was, either in white or black letters.

The intent of the book (in my opinion) was to give a reasonable math based somewhat "how-to" description showing the logic & pitfalls of various numerical methods specifically in a manner useful to a FORTRAN programmer. Further, I don't believe the author intended to make mathematicians/statisticians out of programmers, but to give a reasonable foundation where a FORTRAN programmer could intelligently assist a math/stat researcher or an engineer with digital computation.

The course was called Numerical Techniques (as I recall) at Kearney State College. The stat department had a full-blown Numerical Analysis class for stat majors. The techniques class historically had small enrollment & was considered for elimination. The class was applied in nature. When I took it they changed the class to 1/2 numerical techniques & 1/2 advanced FORTRAN programming and was dually listed under stat & comp-sci. It lasted a few more years and was eliminated partially due to low enrollment. But mainly after faculty moving on to better things not having faculty who could fill the intent of the class well.