MATLAB Programming Lesson 10.1 - Symbolic vs Numerical Analysis

The remainder of this class will focus primarily on using numerical analysis techniques to solve engineering-type problems. In numerical analysis, many simple calculations are generally substituted for the symbolic calculations you are used to doing when you solve a math problem by hand. With numerical analysis, the goal is to APPROXIMATE the actual solution to the problem.
There are advantages and disadvantages to numerical analysis relative to symbolic calculations. The main advantage is that some problems are simply too complicated to solve by hand but they can be done using computers.
The disadvantage is that numerical analysis techniques are subject to unavoidable errors. Because of the way computers work with numbers, numerical analysis almost invariably introduces errors into the calculations. It’s important to realize that these errors exist, so that you can appropriately interpret the results of calculations. This chapter provides an introduction to the unavoidable errors introduced by numerical calculations.
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