Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 442 pages
- Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc. January 17, 2006
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0596008791
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596008796
-
Book Dimensions:
9 x 7 x 1.2 inches
- Weighs: 1.4 pounds
Product Description
Given the improved analytical capabilities of Excel, scientists and engineers everywhere are using it--instead of FORTRAN--to solve problems. And why not? Excel is installed on millions of computers, features a rich set of built-in analyses tools, and includes an integrated Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming language. No wonder it's today's computing tool of choice.
Chances are you already use Excel to perform some fairly routine calculations. Now the
Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook shows you how to leverage Excel to perform more complex calculations, too, calculations that once fell in the domain of specialized tools. It does so by putting a smorgasbord of data analysis techniques right at your fingertips. The book shows how to perform these useful tasks and others:
- Use Excel and VBA in general
- Import data from a variety of sources
- Analyze data
- Perform calculations
- Visualize the results for interpretation and presentation
- Use Excel to solve specific science and engineering problems
Wherever possible, the
Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook draws on real-world examples from a range of scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, and physics. This way, you'll be better prepared to solve the problems you face in your everyday scientific or engineering tasks.
High on practicality and low on theory, this quick, look-up reference provides instant solutions, or "recipes," to problems both basic and advanced. And like other books in O'Reilly's popular
cook book format, each recipe also includes a discussion on how and why it works. As a result, you can take comfort in knowing that complete, practical answers are a mere page-flip away.
About The Author
As a naval architect and marine engineer, David M. Bourg performs computer simulations and develops analysis tools that measure such things as hovercraft performance and the effect of waves on the motion of ships and boats. He teaches at the college level in the areas of ship design, construction and analysis. On occasion, David also lectures at high schools on topics such as naval architecture and
software development. In addition to David's practical engineering background, he's professionally involved in computer game development and consulting through his company, Crescent Vision Interactive.
Reader ReviewsIt is often either inconvenient or financially unfeasible to solve every mathematical problem with a standalone procedural language or an expensive application such as Matlab or Mathematica. Since Excel has such advanced computational capabilities built into it and is ubiquitous in offices and homes, it would make sense to mine this application for numerical problem solving techniques. Bourg does a masterful job of presenting the tools available in Excel and showing the reader how to put them to work to solve real world engineering and mathematical problems. First, he spends a couple of chapters briefly going over Excel and its language VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). Next he goes over some intermediate level tasks such as collecting and cleaning up data, charting including 3D charts, and statistical analysis tasks such as correlating data and generating random numbers. Next Bourg moves into purely mathematical tasks such as working with discrete Fourier transforms, manipulating matrices and vectors, as well as working with basic mathematical functions. Once you have learned to use these mathematical tools in Excel, Bourg uses them to show you how to perform curve fitting and regression, solve equations, perform integration and differentiation, and solve both ordinary and partial differential equations. He even spends time on performing multivariable calculus and the finite element method in Excel. Chapter 13, on optimization, was my favorite chapter. Here, Bourg is actually getting into a little algorithm analysis and design via linear programming and genetic algorithms. This chapter showed me some truly innovative uses of Excel. The final chapter deviates from the scientific flavor of the book and concentrates on more traditional financial applications. The writing is very accessible, the examples are clear and very creative, and the author does a tremendous job of capturing the range of Excel's mathematical capabilities. Do not expect mathematical theory in this book. Bourg assumes you already know how to set up a mathematical problem and that you just need a computational platform and tools with which to perform your work. It is nice to know I am not necessarily held hostage by Mathworks(maker of Matlab) every time I need to solve a mathematical problem of any level of sophistication. Highly recommended. The table of contents is as follows: 1. Using Excel 2. Getting Acquainted with Visual Basic for Applications 3. Collecting and Cleaning Up Data 4. Charting 5. Statistical Analysis 6. Time Series Analysis 7. Mathematical Functions 8. Curve Fitting and Regression 9. Solving Equations 10. Numerical Integration and Differentiation 11. Solving Ordinary Differential Equations 12. Solving Partial Differential Equations 13. Performing Optimization Analyses in Excel 14. Introduction to Financial Calculations
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