Kirjahaku

A prominent scholar explores King Arthur’s historical development, proposing that he began as a fictional character developed in the ninth century According to legend, King Arthur saved Britain from the Saxons and reigned over it gloriously sometime around A.D. 500. Whether or not there was a “real” King Arthur has all too often been neglected by scholars; most period specialists today declare themselves agnostic on this important matter. In this erudite volume, Nick Higham sets out to solve the puzzle, drawing on his original research and expertise to determine precisely when, and why, the legend began. Higham surveys all the major attempts to prove the origins of Arthur, weighing up and debunking hitherto claimed connections with classical Greece, Roman Dalmatia, Sarmatia, and the Caucasus. He then explores Arthur’s emergence in Wales—up to his rise to fame at the hands of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Certain to arouse heated debate among those committed to defending any particular Arthur, Higham’s book is an essential study for anyone seeking to understand how Arthur’s story began.

A prominent scholar explores King Arthur’s historical development, proposing that he began as a fictional character developed in the ninth century According to legend, King Arthur saved Britain from the Saxons and reigned over it gloriously sometime around A.D. 500. Whether or not there was a “real” King Arthur has all too often been neglected by scholars; most period specialists today declare themselves agnostic on this important matter. In this erudite volume, Nick Higham sets out to solve the puzzle, drawing on his original research and expertise to determine precisely when, and why, the legend began. Higham surveys all the major attempts to prove the origins of Arthur, weighing up and debunking hitherto claimed connections with classical Greece, Roman Dalmatia, Sarmatia, and the Caucasus. He then explores Arthur’s emergence in Wales—up to his rise to fame at the hands of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Certain to arouse heated debate among those committed to defending any particular Arthur, Higham’s book is an essential study for anyone seeking to understand how Arthur’s story began.

This book gives a thorough, up-to-date treatment of the behaviour of numerical algorithms in finite precision arithmetic. It combines algorithmic derivations, perturbation theory, and rounding error analysis, all enlivened by historical perspective and informative quotations. The coverage of the first edition has been expanded and updated, involving numerous improvements. Two new chapters treat symmetric indefinite systems and skew-symmetric systems, and nonlinear systems and Newton's method. Twelve new sections include coverage of additional error bounds for Gaussian elimination, rank revealing LU factorizations, weighted and constrained least squares problems, and the fused multiply-add operation found on some modern computer architectures. This new edition is a suitable reference for an advanced course and can also be used at all levels as a supplementary text from which to draw examples, historical perspective, statements of results, and exercises. In addition the thorough indexes and extensive, up-to-date bibliography are in a readily accessible form.

The only book devoted exclusively to matrix functions, this research monograph gives a thorough treatment of the theory of matrix functions and numerical methods for computing them. The author's elegant presentation focuses on the equivalent definitions of f(A) via the Jordan canonical form, polynomial interpolation, and the Cauchy integral formula, and features an emphasis on results of practical interest and an extensive collection of problems and solutions. Functions of Matrices more than just a monograph on matrix functions; its wide-ranging content-including an overview of applications, historical references, and miscellaneous results, tricks, and techniques with an f(A) connection-makes it useful as a general reference in numerical linear algebra. Other key features of the book include development of the theory of conditioning and properties of the Frechet derivative; an emphasis on the Schur decomposition, the block Parlett recurrence, and judicious use of Pade approximants; the inclusion of new, unpublished research results and improved algorithms; a chapter devoted to the f(A)b problem; and a MATLAB(R) toolbox providing implementations of the key algorithms.

Provides advice on all aspects of scientific writing, with a particular focus on writing mathematics. The readable style and handy format, coupled with an extensive bibliography and comprehensive index, make this book ideal for everyone from undergraduates to seasoned professionals.