[...]... and self-learners discover the wealth of capabilities of MATLAB Go to www.textbooks.elsevier.com for more information I wish to acknowledge the support of Mary and Clara and dedicate this book to them Daniel T Valentine clara@clarkson.edu December 2006 xx Part I Essentials Part I is concerned with those aspects of MATLAB which you need to know in order to get to grips with the essentials of MATLAB and... essential requirements for successful MATLAB programming: ➤ You need to learn the exact rules for writing MATLAB statements ➤ You need to develop a logical plan of attack for solving particular problems This chapter is devoted mainly with an introduction to the first requirement: learning some basic MATLAB rules Computer programming is a precise science Essential MATLAB for Engineers and Scientists (some... start it from a UNIX platform, type matlab at the operating system prompt When MATLAB starts, the MATLAB desktop opens as shown in Figure 1.1 The window in the desktop that concerns us for this chapter is the Command Window, where the special prompt appears This prompt means that MATLAB is waiting for a command You can quit MATLAB at any time with one of the following: ➤ Select Exit MATLAB from the desktop... most similar books on MATLAB MATLAB is based on the mathematical concept of a matrix Again, unlike most comparable books, this text does not assume any knowledge of matrices on the part of the reader; in fact the concept is developed gradually, as the context requires it Since the book is written primarily for scientists and engineers, some of the examples of necessity involve some first-year university... cover the latest version of MATLAB (Version 7.2 Release 2006a) The other purpose was to maintain the objectives of the late Brian D Hahn as stated in the prefaces of the first and second edition In his prefaces to the first and second edition, he pointed out the following: This book presents the MATLAB computer programming system as a problemsolving tool for scientists and engineers who have no prior... File I/O functions Graphics C.13.1 2-D C.13.2 3-D C.13.3 General 398 398 399 399 399 399 400 400 400 400 401 402 402 402 402 403 403 403 403 404 404 Appendix D: ASCII character codes 405 Appendix E: Solutions to selected exercises 406 Index 421 xiii This page intentionally left blank In memory of Brian Hahn 1946–2005 Daniel T Valentine and the staff at Butterworth-Heinemann, Elsevier would like to dedicate... MATLAB In order to use MATLAB it must either be installed on your computer, or you must have access to a network where it is available Throughout this book 4 1 Introduction 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 100 200 300 400 500 600 Figure 1.1 The MATLAB desktop the latest version of MATLAB at the time of writing is assumed—Version 7.2 (Release 2006a) To start MATLAB from Windows, double-click the MATLAB. .. MATLAB (For the computer and programming-calculator wise students, the chapters on more advanced topics should help them get into the application of MATLAB to solve the more complex problems confronted in upper division courses at university and, subsequently, on the job.) This book can be used as a course textbook or for student self-study For the latter, it is a useful supplemental text for any course... the close box in the top right corner of the MATLAB desktop This does not allow MATLAB to terminate properly and, on rare occasions, may cause problems with your computer operating software (the new author corrupted a graphics utility when doing color graphics by clicking the red x!) 5 Essential MATLAB for Engineers and Scientists Once you have started MATLAB, try the following exercises in the Command... π/180 to get radians For example, use MATLAB to calculate sin (90◦ ) The answer should be 1, i.e sin(90*pi/180) (c) The exponential function ex is computed in MATLAB as exp(x) Use this information to find e and 1/e (2.7183 and 0.3679) Note that, because of the numerous built-in functions like pi or sin, care must be exercised in the naming of user-defined variables The name of user-defined variables should . together to form Part 1. In addition, I have added two new chapters. These are Chapters 3 and 14. Chapter 3 describes a structured step-by-step method to achieve top-down design and algorithm development 2006 Second edition 2006 Third edition 2007 Copyright © 2002, 2006, 2007 Brian D. Hahn and Daniel T. Valentine. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved The right of Brian D. Hahn and Daniel T. Valentine. maintain the objectives of the late Brian D. Hahn as stated in the prefaces of the first and second edition. In his prefaces to the first and second edition, he pointed out the following: This