The choice of topics in the book has been influenced by the Undergraduate Computational Engineering and Science Project (a United States Department of Energy funded e􀀞ort), which was a series of meetings during the 1990s. These meetings focused on the nature and content for computational science undergraduate education. They were attended by a diverse group of science and engineering teachers and professionals, and the continuation of some of University in fall semesters since 1992. The other four chapters were developed in 2002 and taught in the 2002-03 academic year.
The department of mathematics at North Carolina State University has given me the time to focus on the challenge of introducing computational science materials into the undergraduate curriculum. The North Carolina Supercomtutorials and computer time on supercomputers. Many students have made important suggestions, and Carol Cox Benzi contributed some course materials with the initial use of MATLAB R°. MATLAB is a registered trademark of The MathWorks, Inc.