A First Look at Perturbation Theory (Dover Books on Physics)

Product Description

Undergraduates in engineering and the physical sciences receive a thorough introduction to perturbation theory in this useful and accessible text. Students discover methods for obtaining an approximate solution of a mathematical problem by exploiting the presence of a small, dimensionless parameter — the smaller the parameter, the more accurate the approximate solution. Knowledge of perturbation theory offers a twofold benefit: approximate solutions often reveal the exact solution's essential dependence on specified parameters; also, some problems resistant to numerical solutions may yield to perturbation methods. In fact, numerical and perturbation methods can be combined in a complementar…