Chapter 1 ntroduction to matlaB This book is an introduction to two subjects: MATLAB and numerical computing This first chapter introduces MATLAB by presenting several programs that inves tigate elementary, but interesting, mathematical problems. If you already have some experience programming in another language, we hope that you can see how MATLAB works by simply studying these programs If you want a more comprehensive introduction, an on-line manual from The Math Works is available. Select Help in the toolbar atop the MATLAB command window, then select MATLAB Help and Getting Started. A PDF version is vailable under Printable versions The document is also available from the Math Works Web site 10. Many other manuals produced by The Math Works are available on line and from the Web site A list of over 600 MATLAB-based books by other authors and publishers, in sev- eral languages, is available at [11. Three introductions to MATLAB are of particular interest here: a relatively short primer by Sigmon and Davis [8, a medium-sized mathematically oriented text by Higham and Higham 3, and a large, compreher sive manual by Hanselman and Littlefield 2 You should have a copy of matlaB close at hand so you can run our sample programs as you read about them. All of the programs used in this book have beer collected in a directory (or folder)named (The directory name is the initials of the book title. You can either start MATLAB in this directory or use patht to add the directory to the MATLAB path December 26 2005Chapter 1 Introduction to MATLAB This book is an introduction to two subjects: Matlab and numerical computing. This first chapter introduces Matlab by presenting several programs that inves￾tigate elementary, but interesting, mathematical problems. If you already have some experience programming in another language, we hope that you can see how Matlab works by simply studying these programs. If you want a more comprehensive introduction, an on-line manual from The MathWorks is available. Select Help in the toolbar atop the Matlab command window, then select MATLAB Help and Getting Started. A PDF version is available under Printable versions. The document is also available from The MathWorks Web site [10]. Many other manuals produced by The MathWorks are available on line and from the Web site. A list of over 600 Matlab-based books by other authors and publishers, in sev￾eral languages, is available at [11]. Three introductions to Matlab are of particular interest here: a relatively short primer by Sigmon and Davis [8], a medium-sized, mathematically oriented text by Higham and Higham [3], and a large, comprehen￾sive manual by Hanselman and Littlefield [2]. You should have a copy of Matlab close at hand so you can run our sample programs as you read about them. All of the programs used in this book have been collected in a directory (or folder) named NCM (The directory name is the initials of the book title.) You can either start Matlab in this directory or use pathtool to add the directory to the Matlab path. December 26, 2005 1