Optimization

Increasingly in the sciences, and in conjunction with the growth in power and accessibility of computers, analysts find themselves facing problems in which the aim is to find the "best" or optimal way to accomplish some objective, usually with the additional complication of constraints on the available choices. Approaches to these kinds of problems constitute the subject matter of this book. In addition to classical, calculus-based approaches, this text covers computer-based iterative methods. Algebraic results are accompanied with geometric interpretations in an effort to emphasize the intuitive appeal of mathematics. Mathematical details that the author felt to be important for a thorough understanding of a topic have been put into the book's appendices.