MATLAB

Since this is a course on computational methods, it would be useless to only study their theory but not know how to use them in practice. The homeworks will therefore involve some "programming" tasks. As it is well-suited for matrix comutations and numerical linear algebra in general, we will use the MATLAB software for it. You are welcome to try out other programming languages and software by yourself, such as for example Numpy, but submit your homework as a MATLAB/Octave code.

Installing/using MATLAB:

• As a student of UMD, you can obtain a student license for the MATLAB software for your own machine via terpware:
  • Linux: https://terpware.umd.edu/Linux/title/1849
  • PC: https://terpware.umd.edu/Windows/title/1849
  • Mac: https://terpware.umd.edu/Mac/title/1849
• Alternatively, you can use MATLAB on the computers of the student computer labs.
• If you do not want to install or use MATLAB, you can use Octave (https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/) as an alternative. It is free and largely compatible with MATLAB. There may be some differences, see for example: http://wiki.octave.org/FAQ#Differences_between_Octave_and_Matlab or https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MATLAB_Programming/Differences_between_Octave_and_MATLAB . Remember that you can get MATLAB for free as a UMD student and that you are paying tuition fees ;)

Learning MATLAB:

• Various MATLAB tutorials for different proficiency levels can be found on the mathworks.com website: https://www.mathworks.com/support/learn-with-matlab-tutorials.html
• Consider reading (and trying out) Chapter 1 in Cleve Moler's "Numerical Computing with MATLAB" book: https://www.mathworks.com/content/dam/mathworks/mathworks-dot-com/moler/intro.pdf
• For questions about specific MATLAB functions, you can use the MATLAB-command "help [function]" in the MATLAB console or the Help documentation online (https://www.mathworks.com/help/) or when starting MATLAB here:

• In the Help documentation you can also find the topic "Getting Started with MATLAB" where the basic concepts are explained. Alternatively, you can find it here: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/getting-started-with-matlab.html
• Use the www.