Numerical Methods for Engineers and Scientists Using MATLAB®, 2nd Edition

2

Introduction to MATLAB®

This chapter presents features and capabilities of MATLAB pertinent to numerical methods. These range from vector and matrix operations and symbolic calculations to plotting options for functions and sets of data. Several MATLAB built-in functions and their applications will also be introduced. The chapter concludes with guidelines to prepare user-defined functions and script files to perform specific tasks.

2.1 MATLAB Built-In Functions

MATLAB has a large number of built-in elementary functions, each accompanied by a brief but sufficient description through the help command. For example,

>> help sqrt
 sqrt   Square root.
    sqrt(X) is the square root of the elements of X. Complex
 results are produced if X is ...