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Dynamical Systems with Applications using MATLAB

Will's pick this week is Dynamical Systems with Applications using MATLAB by Stephen Lynch.

Many years ago, a professor of my numerical methods class insisted that we write all our programs in C. When several students bemoaned this imposition, he explained that the reason he did this was that the exercise was "pedagogical." Well, once I looked up what pedagogical meant, I saw some merit to his position. It never hurts to flex your skills in a different programming language. In this case, however, I felt like C was the wrong tool for the job. MATLAB was a more natural environment to develop the algorithms in question, and its output still satisfied the homework deliverable requirements. In the end, the TA accepted my work from MATLAB without complaint.

So anytime I see a professor arrive at the similar conclusion that MATLAB is an ideal programming platform for engineering problems, I can't help but be delighted. Dr. Lynch has in fact built his entire dynamics textbook around MATLAB and Simulink. All the examples he uses in the book are available on MATLAB Central. Some 59 MATLAB files and 10 Simulink models are provided.

Of course if you have the book, you'll have a better appreciation for what intriguing plots like these are conveying.

Ring Passes

Lorenz System

Nevertheless, anyone with some experience in dynamics will appreciate the work that's put together here.

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