Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 22:33:11 GMT Server: Apache/1.0.3 Content-type: text/html Content-length: 8751 Last-modified: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 13:43:49 GMT B573, Section 1179: Scientific Computing II

B573: Scientific Computing II

Iterative Solution of Large Scale Systems - Fall 1996
B573, Section 1179
2:00-3:20PM, MW
115 Lindley Hall

Contents


General Information

Instructor:
Prerequisites:
Mathematics M343 and one of M303 or M301, and a working knowledge of Fortran, C, or C++. Students should be able to write and run programs under a UNIX operating system.
Textbook:
Iterative Methods for Sparse Linear Systems by Yousef Saad.
This is intended as a reference work, and the material covered in this course is not identical to that in the textbook.

Office Hours

Same as on the home page: Mon - Wed, 9:00 - 10:00 AM.

Course Description

This course is for students in the sciences and applied mathematics whose research involves solving large sparse linear systems on a computer, and for computer scientists interested in learning the computational problems encountered in scientific and engineering codes. Sparse linear systems occur in most large scale physical modeling programs and often the setting up and solution of them accounts for the majority of the computer time. This course will focus on practical methods and their computer implementation, with a minimal amount of the underlying mathematical theory. High level tools will be used in order to quickly implement and test methods. Existing software will also be used whenever possible, to avoid building everything from scratch, and to learn how to use existing software resources. Course goals include the ability to understand the influence of computer architecture on the choice of methods and data structures, the strengths and weaknesses of basic methods, common sources of large sparse linear systems, and the resulting implications for choosing methods and implementations. Students will finish the semester with a toolkit of solvers that they can then use for solving scientific problems, for probing computer architectures, or for obtaining a deeper understanding of the methods commonly used in scientific computing.

Tentative Course Outline


Class Newsgroup

The course newsgroup, ac.csci.b573, will be used to post announcements, assignments, corrections, and any exceptions to usual office hours. Use it to post questions related to the course or share related information with the class. You are responsible for checking the newsgroup frequently, since any changes or corrections to assignments will appear there.

Grading Policies

Grades are based on projects involving writing and/or analyzing computer programs. Written reports are required for these projects. Each assignment will have questions intended to begin your thinking process, not end it. Grading will also be based on the questions you raise and answer in these projects. For example, if the question is "Which of the methods A and B is faster," simply saying "A" is not sufficient. You should also ask the underlying question ``What measure of fast is appropriate here?'', "Why is A faster?", etc. Most projects you can tackle in groups. However, you must give full attribution for any outside sources you use for ideas, software, or help. Also, I reserve the right to call on any member of the group to present/explain/defend/justify the group's work and to base the entire group's grade on that member's performance. So be careful who you team up with!

Cheating

Don't. You can get away with virtually any lifting or scavenging of material, provided you cite the source. If your citation is "I photocopied another student's write-up" then you won't get many points on the assignment, but at least you won't be branded with a scarlet "P" and tarred and feathered.

Assignments

Assignments will be given often; a total of 10-15 will be given (depending on the chunk size of each one!).

Lecture Notes

This is not a full or complete set of lecture notes; in the words of a not-so-great philosopher, "You had to be there". If you miss a lecture, be sure to check with other students in the class for what went on. These are in Postscript, since latex2html still is not up to snuff for papers with lots of math symbols.