Fills the gap of existing literature offering mathematical analysis in simple engineering language and ample application example.

Teodorescu (mathematics and computer science, U. of Bucharest), Stanescu, and Pandrea (both mechanics and technology, U. of Pitesti, Romania) present an interdisciplinary textbook that links the applicative part of numerical methods--where mathematical results are used without understanding their proof--to the theoretical part of the methods--where each statement is rigorously demonstrated. Each chapter ends with problems of mechanics, physics, or engineering, stated first in its mechanical or technical form, then as a mathematical model in which the physical magnitudes play the part of unknown functions and the laws that lead to the mathematical problem. The solution moves in reverse, from the mathematical to the technical, theoretical to practical. Students are assumed to have completed courses in elementary analysis and algebra. Annotation 2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)