Elementary yet rigorous, this concise treatment explores practical numerical methods for solving very general two-point boundary-value problems. The approach is directed toward students with a knowledge of advanced calculus and basic numerical analysis as well as some background in ordinary differential equations and linear algebra.
After an introductory chapter that covers some of the basic prerequisites, the text studies three techniques in detail: initial value or "shooting" methods, finite difference methods, and integral equations methods. Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problems are treated with all three techniques, and shooting is applied to generalized or nonlinear eigenvalue problems. Several other areas of numerical analysis are introduced throughout the study. The treatment concludes with more than 100 problems that augment and clarify the text, and several research papers appear in the Appendixes.