| | |  | Manager's Guides to Computing | Home » » » A Primer on Scientific Programming with Python (Texts in Computational Science and Engineering) | | | | | | | Description: | | The book serves as a first introduction to computer programming of scientific applications, using the high-level Python language. The exposition is example- and problem-oriented, where the applications are taken from mathematics, numerical calculus, statistics, physics, biology, and finance. The book teaches "Matlab-style" and procedural programming as well as object-oriented programming. High school mathematics is a required background, and it is advantageous to study classical and numerical one-variable calculus in parallel with reading this book. Besides learning how to program computers, the reader will also learn how to solve mathematical problems, arising in various branches of science and engineering, with the aid of numerical methods and programming. By blending programming, mathematics and scientific applications, the book lays a solid foundation for practicing computational science. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Hans Petter Langtangen | | Hardcover:
| 693 pages | | Publisher:
| Springer | | Publication Date:
| September 10, 2009 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 3642024742 | | Product Length:
| 9.78 inches | | Product Width:
| 7.8 inches | | Product Height:
| 1.58 inches | | Product Weight:
| 3.74 pounds | | Package Length:
| 10.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 7.8 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.4 inches | | Package Weight:
| 4.15 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 9 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 9 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 37 found the following review helpful:
 An excellent introduction to numerical methids using Python.Dec 14, 2009
By Howard R. Hansen
Don't be fooled by the title or the first chapter, this book provides
a solid introduction for using Python in scientific applications. The
main application areas covered are calculating the value of functions,
both built in and user supplied, plotting data, finding the roots of
equations, difference equations, numerical differentiation, numerical
integration and the solution to differential equations by numerical
methods.
Along the way you will learn how to use lists, tuples, dictionaries,
loops, list comprehension, lambda functions, Numpy arrays, file I/O
and Python Classes for programming scientific applications. Two
main highlights of the book are the thorough explanations the author
provides on how to use most of the features of Python and the copious
number of examples with answers. Other features are an example on how
to extract data from a Web Page and scitools. Scitools provides a
Matlab type of interface to gnuplot. About the only thing missing is
a summary on how to install Numpy, Scipy, Scitools, gunplot, and
gnuplot.py.
19 of 20 found the following review helpful:
excelent textbookFeb 17, 2010
By Beltran Gonzalez Carlos
This is a textbook which origins come from a course in an university. On the
one hand, this makes the author to explain things absolutely obvious, clearly
oriented to students in the first years of their technical degree. On the
other hand, some of these explanations become handy if you have to teach this
material or even, sometimes, to learn the origins of something that you have
accepted as obvious without knowing exactly why is so. This is particularly
relevant in those parts dealing with mathematics (many in the book). The book
probably is of no use for an expert on SciPy/Numpy, but it is definitely useful for
people, like me, that is starting to discover the enormous capabilities of
these python language extensions. I clearly recommend this book for such
target users. The book is also excellently well written, with a clear and
concise style. Errors seem to be absent from the text and exercises are very
well targeted to the area of scientific computation.
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
Helpful book for me.Jun 18, 2010
By A. Anderson
I've always done scientific computing using Fortran but got curious and did some projects with Python. I learned Python using online references. Now as I read through this Primer I realize how many essential details I missed by gathering information randomly off the internet. This book presents material clearly and in a comprehensive and logical manner.
Note that the emphasis is on teaching Python rather than numerical methods. If your main focus is to learn techniques for scientific computing then you should look for a different book.
Python is a good language for learning to use object-oriented programming (OOP) and this book will make that easy. On the other hand, the author didn't quite convince me that this approach is useful for scientific programming (but OOP is clearly quite useful elsewhere).
Overall I found the book very helpful - highly recommended.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Excellent introduction to both scientific programming and Python in generalApr 07, 2011
By A. P. Chamberlain
I bought this looking for an accessible introduction to numerical methods such as matrix math and numerical integration. The book's great for that. As a side benefit I realized as soon as I opened the book that I also now had a clearer tutorial for Python than any other I've seen. Like many of the other posters here, I originally tried to learn Python from looking at bits and pieces of code online and at various reference manuals, but didn't get very far. Nor have I found any of the other introductory books, even O'Reilly's canonical Learning Python, to be much help. This book filled in what I was missing. Much as with Perl, Python is a deceptively simple language, and many people are productive in it just by tweaking code they have found on the Web a bit and deploying it; but beyond this level is an extraordinarily powerful tool with a number of unique features that can only be appreciated and put to good use with a bit of hand-holding and careful walkthroughs of well-crafted code. You could almost see this book as providing that kind of clear, comprehensive understanding of the language, with numerical programming as simply a vehicle by which to accomplish that.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
The Python Book I've Been Looking For!Aug 07, 2011
By A. Crider
As a physics professor at a liberal arts school, I have been trying to switch from a costly interactive data language to Python for years. Since I learned some Python in order to teach Matter & Interactions to freshmen, I have been trying to switch over to it for my research, too. Until now, I haven't been able to find a handy desk reference. This is the book I've been seeking for years! Unlike most of the other Python books (usually with animals on the cover) written for computer science folk, this one is written for people like me trying to do science. The simple examples for basic science tasks are perfect. I certainly will be recommending this to other new faculty learning Python.
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