Category:Numerical Computing

This category is for 'Numerical Computing Tools' or 'Numerical Computing Software Packages'.

Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation - as opposed to symbolic manipulations - as a means to do mathematical analysis, as opposed to doing the analysis symbolically following discrete mathematics and proofs. You could for instance do numerical analysis as pen on paper, but it's usually a whole lot quicker, and less dull, to do it using a computer. Hence is the concept of 'Numerical Computing', which uses the combination of computer programming and mathematics to develop and analyze algorithms for solving problems - these could be engineering problems, e.g. consideration for the voltage and current or load tolerances of a system, and it can be applied to natural science (e.g. analyzing problems in physics), or in other areas such as medicine, business, construction etc. Commonly the language for programming these tools are termed "Scientific Programming Languages", such as the MATLAB programming language which are colloquially referred to as m-files.

Of the tools available to do numerical computing, Matlab is uncontestedly the most popular commercial package for doing this. But there are other tools, that are free, open-source or have lower licensing costs if any for non-commercial use. Octave is among the most popular of freely available numerical computing software tools. Others include SciLab, R, and Julia. All of these are available to download for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X operating systems.