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ME110 – Advance Engineering Mathematics for ME

Subject Instructor: Engr. Garne Joshua A. Ilan
Module No. & Title: 1. Numerical Methods
=================================================================================
1. Numerical Methods
Outline of Topics
1. Discrete Algebra
2. Accuracy
3. Error

Specific Intended Learning Outcome/s (SILOs)

At the end of this topic, the student should be able to:
 Comprehend the different terms commonly used in Numerical Methods
 Solve problems involving Discrete Algebra, Accuracy, and Errors

Numerical Methods is an approximate computer method for solving a mathematical problem which often
has no analytical solution
Lesson 1: Discrete Algebra
Discrete Mathematics is a branch of mathematics involving discrete elements that uses algebra and
arithmetic. It is increasingly being applied in the practical fields of mathematics and computer science. It is
a very good tool for improving reasoning and problem-solving capabilities.

Mathematics can be broadly classified into two categories:

Continuous Mathematics ─ It is based upon continuous number line or the real

numbers. It is characterized by the fact that between any two numbers, there
are almost always an infinite set of numbers. For example, a function in continuous
mathematics can be plotted in a smooth curve without break.

Discrete Mathematics ─ It involves distinct values; i.e. between any two points,
there are a countable number of points. For example, if we have a finite set of objects,
the function can be defined as a list of ordered pairs having these objects, and can be
presented as a complete list of those pairs.

A set is an unordered collection of different elements. A set can be written explicitly by listing
its elements using set bracket. If the order of the elements is changed or any element of a
set is repeated, it does not make any changes in the set.

Some Example of Sets:

A set of all positive integers
A set of all the planets in the solar system
A set of all the states in India
A set of all the lowercase letters of the alphabet

Sets can be represented in two ways:

 Roster or Tabular Form
 Set Builder Notation

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Roster or Tabular Form

The set is represented by listing all the elements comprising it. The elements are enclosed within braces
and separated by commas.

Example 1: Set of vowels in English alphabet, A = {a,e,i,o,u}

Example 2: Set of odd numbers less than 10, B = {1,3,5,7,9}

Set Builder Notation

The set is defined by specifying a property that elements of the set have in common. The set
is described as A = { x : p(x)}

Example 1: The set {a,e,i,o,u} is written as:

A = { x : x is a vowel in English alphabet}

Example 2: The set {1,3,5,7,9} is written as:

B = { x : 1≤x<10 and (x(2)) ≠ 0}

member of set S, it is denoted by y ∉ S.

If an element x is a member of any set S, it is denoted by x∈ S and if an element y is not a

Example: If S = {1, 1.2,1.7,2}, 1∈ S but 1.5 ∉S

Some Important Sets

N: the set of all natural numbers = {1, 2, 3, 4, .....}

Z: the set of all integers = {....., -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, .....}
Z+ : the set of all positive integers
Q: the set of all rational numbers
R: the set of all real numbers
W: the set of all whole numbers

Cardinality of a Set

Cardinality of a set S, denoted by |S|, is the number of elements of the set. The number is also referred as
the cardinal number. If a set has an infinite number of elements, its cardinality is ∞.

Example: |{1, 4, 3,5}| = 4, |{1, 2, 3,4,5,…}| = ∞

If there are two sets X and Y,

 |X| = |Y| denotes two sets X and Y having same cardinality. It occurs when the number
of elements in X is exactly equal to the number of elements in Y. In this case, there
exists a bijective function ‘f’ from X to Y.

 | X| ≤ | Y | denotes that set X’s cardinality is less than or equal to set Y’s cardinality.
It occurs when number of elements in X is less than or equal to that of Y. Here, there
exists an injective function ‘f’ from X to Y.

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 |X| < |Y| denotes that set X’s cardinality is less than set Y’s cardinality. It occurs when
number of elements in X is less than that of Y. Here, the function ‘f’ from X to Y is
injective function but not bijective.

 If |X | ≤ | Y | and | Y | ≤ | X | then | X | = | Y |. The sets X and Y are commonly referred

as equivalent sets.

Types of Sets

Sets can be classified into many types. Some of which are finite, infinite, subset, universal,
proper, singleton set, etc.

Finite Set

Example: S = {x | x ∈ N and 70 > x > 50}

A set which contains a definite number of elements is called a finite set.

Infinite Set

∈
A set which contains infinite number of elements is called an infinite set.
Example: S = {x | x N and x > 10}

A set X is a subset of set Y (Written as X ⊆ Y) if every element of X is an element of set Y.

Subset

set Y is in set X. Hence, we can write Y ⊆X.

Example 1: Let, X = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 } and Y = { 1, 2 }. Here set Y is a subset of set X as all the elements of

the elements of set Y is in set X. Hence, we can write Y ⊆ X.

Example 2: Let, X = {1, 2, 3} and Y = {1, 2, 3}. Here set Y is a subset (Not a proper subset) of set X as all

Proper Subset

(Written as X ⊂Y) if every element of X is an element of set Y and | X| < | Y |.

The term “proper subset” can be defined as “subset of but not equal to”. A Set X is a proper subset of set Y

Example: Let, X = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} and Y = {1, 2}. Here set Y ⊂ X since all elements
in Y are contained in X too and X has at least one element is more than set Y.

Universal Set
It is a collection of all elements in a particular context or application. All the sets in that context or
application are essentially subsets of this universal set. Universal sets are represented as U.

Example: We may define U as the set of all animals on earth. In this case, set of all
mammals is a subset of U, set of all fishes is a subset of U, set of all insects is a subset of
U, and so on.

An empty set contains no elements. It is denoted by ∅. As the number of elements in an empty set is finite,
Empty Set or Null Set

empty set is a finite set. The cardinality of empty set or null set is zero.

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Example: S = {x | x ∈ N and 7 < x < 8} = ∅

Singleton Set or Unit Set

Singleton set or unit set contains only one element. A singleton set is denoted by {s}.

Example: S = {x | x ∈ N, 7 < x < 9} = { 8 }

Equal Set

If two sets contain the same elements, they are said to be equal.

Example: If A = {1, 2, 6} and B = {6, 1, 2}, they are equal as every element of set A is an element of set B
and every element of set B is an element of set A.

Equivalent Set
If the cardinalities of two sets are same, they are called equivalent sets.

Example: If A = {1, 2, 6} and B = {16, 17, 22}, they are equivalent as cardinality of A is equal to the
cardinality of B. i.e. |A|=|B|=3

Overlapping Set
Two sets that have at least one common element are called overlapping sets.

 n(A ∪ B) = n(A) + n(B) - n(A ∩ B)

In case of overlapping sets:

 n(A ∪ B) = n(A - B) + n(B - A) + n(A ∩ B)

 n(A) = n(A - B) + n(A ∩ B)
 n(B) = n(B - A) + n(A ∩ B)

Example: Let, A = {1, 2, 6} and B = {6, 12, 42}. There is a common element ‘6’, hence these sets are
overlapping sets.

Disjoint Set
Two sets A and B are called disjoint sets if they do not have even one element in common. Therefore,

 n(A ∩ B) = ∅
disjoint sets have the following properties:

 n(A ∪ B) = n(A) + n(B)

Example: Let, A = {1, 2, 6} and B = {7, 9, 14}; there is not a single common element,
hence these sets are overlapping sets.

Venn Diagrams

Venn diagram, invented in1880 by John Venn, is a schematic diagram that shows all possible logical
relations between different mathematical sets.

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Set Operations
Set Operations include Set Union, Set Intersection, Set Difference, Complement of Set, and Cartesian
Product.

The union of sets A and B (denoted by A ∪ B) is the set of elements which are in A, in B, or
Set Union

in both A and B. Hence, A∪B = {x | x ∈A OR x ∈B}.

Example: If A = {10, 11, 12, 13} and B = {13, 14, 15}, then A ∪ B = {10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
15}. (The common element occurs only once)

Set Intersection

A and B. Hence, A∩B = {x | x ∈A AND x ∈B}.

The intersection of sets A and B (denoted by A ∩ B) is the set of elements which are in both

Example: If A = {11, 12, 13} and B = {13, 14, 15}, then A∩B = {13}.

Set Difference/ Relative Complement

Hence, A−B = {x | x ∈A AND x ∉B}.

The set difference of sets A and B (denoted by A–B) is the set of elements which are only in A but not in B.

Example: If A = {10, 11, 12, 13} and B = {13, 14, 15}, then (A−B) = {10, 11, 12} and
(B−A) = {14,15}. Here, we can see (A−B) ≠ (B−A)

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Complement of a Set

Hence, A' = {x | x ∉A}.

The complement of a set A (denoted by A’) is the set of elements which are not in set A.

More specifically, A'= (U–A) where U is a universal set which contains all objects.

Example: If A ={x | x belongs to set of odd integers} then A' ={y | y does not belong to
set of odd integers}

Cartesian Product/Cross Product

all possible ordered pairs (x1,x2,....xn) where x1∈ A1 , x2∈ A2 , ...... xn ∈ An

The Cartesian product of n number of sets A1, A2.....An, denoted as A1 × A2 ×..... × An, can be defined as

Example: If we take two sets A= {a, b} and B= {1, 2},

The Cartesian product of A and B is written as: A×B= {(a, 1), (a, 2), (b, 1), (b, 2)}
The Cartesian product of B and A is written as: B×A= {(1, a), (1, b), (2, a), (2, b)}

Power Set
Power set of a set S is the set of all subsets of S including the empty set. The cardinality of a power set of a
set S of cardinality n is 2n Power set is denoted as P(S).
Example:
For a set S = {a, b, c, d} let us calculate the subsets:
 Subsets with 0 elements: {∅} (the empty set)
 Subsets with 1 element: {a}, {b}, {c}, {d}
 Subsets with 2 elements: {a,b}, {a,c}, {a,d}, {b,c}, {b,d},{c,d}
 Subsets with 3 elements: {a,b,c},{a,b,d},{a,c,d},{b,c,d}
 Subsets with 4 elements: {a,b,c,d}

Hence, P(S) =
{ {∅},{a}, {b}, {c}, {d},{a,b}, {a,c}, {a,d}, {b,c},
{b,d},{c,d},{a,b,c},{a,b,d},{a,c,d},{b,c,d},{a,b,c,d} }

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| P(S) | = 24 =16
Note: The power set of an empty set is also an empty set.
| P ({∅}) | = 20 = 1

Partitioning of a Set
Partition of a set, say S, is a collection of n disjoint subsets, say P1, P2,...… Pn, that satisfies the following
three conditions:
 Pi does not contain the empty set.
[ Pi ≠ {∅} for all 0 < i ≤ n]

[P1 ∪ P2 ∪ .....∪ Pn = S]
 The union of the subsets must equal the entire original set.

 The intersection of any two distinct sets is empty.

[Pa ∩ Pb ={∅}, for a ≠ b where n ≥ a, b ≥ 0 ]
Example
Let S = {a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h}
One probable partitioning is {a}, {b, c, d}, {e, f, g,h}
Another probable partitioning is {a,b}, { c, d}, {e, f, g,h}

Bell Numbers
Bell numbers give the count of the number of ways to partition a set. They are denoted by Bn where n is
the cardinality of the set.

Example:
Let S = { 1, 2, 3}, n = |S| = 3

1. ∅, {1, 2, 3}
The alternate partitions are:

2. {1}, {2, 3}
3. {1, 2}, {3}
4. {1, 3}, {2}
5. {1}, {2},{3}

Lesson 2: Errors
Every result we compute in Numerical Methods is inaccurate. What is our model of that error?

Suppose the true answer to a given problem is x0, and the computed answer is ˜x.

What is the absolute error?

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What is the relative error?

Example: A sphere is made of ice having radius 10 cm. Its radius decreases from 10 cm to 9.8cm. Find
approximations for the following:

(i) change in the volume (ii) change in the surface area

Solution:

Volume of sphere V(r) = (4/3) πr3

Surface area of sphere A(r) = 4πr2

(i) Change in volume = Rate of change in volume x difference

V'(r) = (4/3) π(3r2) dr

V'(r) = (4πr2) dr

V'(r) = (4π (10)2) (0.2)

V'(r) = 80π

(ii) Change in surface area:

A(r) = 4πr2

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A'(r) = 8πr(dr)

A'(r) = 8π (10) (0.2)

A'(r) = 16π cm2

Surface area decreases by 16π cm2

Volume decreases by 80π cm3.

Why introduce relative error?

Because absolute error can be misleading, depending on the

magnitude of x0. Take an absolute error of 0.1 as an example.
• If x0 = 105
, then ˜x = 105 + 0.1 is a fairly accurate result.
• If x0 = 10-5
, then ˜x = 10-5 + 0.1 is a completely inaccurate result.

Note* Relative error is independent of magnitude

What is meant by ‘the result has 5 accurate digits?

Say we compute an answer that gets printed as

3.1415777777

The closer we get to the correct answer, the more of the leading digits will be right:
3.1415

Forward Error

Backward Error

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Examples of error sources in this system might include:

• Truncation error: Using IEEE floating point to represent parameters and output of the system and
truncating when computing the product
• Discretization error: Replacing the acceleration a with a divided difference
• Modeling error: Neglecting to simulate the moon’s effects on the earth’s motion within the
planetary
system
• Empirical error: Only entering the mass of Jupiter to four digits
• Input error: The user may wish to evaluate the cost of sending garbage into space rather than
risking
a Wall-E style accumulation on Earth but can only estimate the amount of garbage the government
is willing to jettison in this fashion

Lesson 2: Accuracy
Determining the condition, or sensitivity, of a problem is an important task in the error analysis of an
algorithm designed to solve the problem, but it does not provide sufficient information to determine whether
an algorithm will yield an accurate approximate solution. Recall that the condition number of a function f
depends on, among other things, the absolute forward error f(ˆx) − f(x). However, an algorithm for
evaluating f(x) actually evaluates a function ˆf that approximates f, producing an approximation ˆy = ˆf(x) to
the exact solution y = f(x). In our definition of backward error, we have assumed that ˆf(x) = f(ˆx) for some ˆx

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that is close to x; i.e., our approximate solution to the original problem is the exact solution to a “nearby”
problem. This assumption has allowed us to define the condition number of f independently of any
approximation ˆf. This independence is necessary, because the sensitivity of a problem depends solely on
the problem itself and not any algorithm that may be used to approximately solve it.
Is it always reasonable to assume that any approximate solution is the exact solution to a nearby problem?
Unfortunately, it is not. It is possible that an algorithm that yields an accurate approximation for given data
may be unreasonably sensitive to perturbations in that data. This leads to the concept of a stable algorithm:
an algorithm applied to a given problem with given data x is said to be stable if it computes an approximate
solution that is the exact solution to the same problem with data ˆx, where ˆx is a small perturbation of x.
It can be shown that if a problem is well-conditioned, and if we have a stable algorithm for solving it, then
the computed solution can be considered accurate, in the sense that the relative error in the computed
solution is small. On the other hand, a stable algorithm applied to an ill-conditioned problem cannot be
expected to produce an accurate solution.

To simplify these concepts, we can use accuracy and their precision, which we will define by the shot
patterns of a rifle target. First, accuracy is related to systematic error result, and tells you how close you are
to the “true” values, or the values you are looking for. In the figure below, we see the shots on the left target
are not located near the target center. This is a low accuracy. The target on the right has a midpoint value
very close to the target center, so we would say it has a high accuracy. Now, as you have already noticed,
there is a difference between the scatter of both graphs. This scatter is related to the precision, which is
related to
random error, and describes how repeatable an experiment is based on how much scatter it produces. In
our target below, we see that the left system has a low amount of scatter because all the points are located
very close together, which means it has high precision. The target on the left has points all over the page,
which would indicate it has low precision.

There are two other terms that we will use through this lab manual that are directly related with accuracy
and precision. We define dispersion or scatter to be how far apart individual data points are located from
one another, which would make it closely related to precision. In fact, we can see that the two are inversely
related, or that high precision means low scatter, and vice-versa. We will also use deviation to be the value
by which our calculated values differ from the actual or “true” value, which makes it closely related to
accuracy. In fact, these two are also inversely related, meaning high accuracy results in low deviation. You
will need to be very careful to keep these terms straight and not mix them up in your mind.

Finding Uncertainty from Repeated Measurements

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Mean of the set of N measurements

Deviation of a point from the mean

Averaged squared deviations

Significant Figures

 The leftmost non-zero digit is the most significant digit.

 If there is no decimal point, the rightmost non-zero digit is the least significant digit.
 If there is a decimal point, the rightmost digit is the least significant digit, even if it is zero.
 All digits between the least and most significant digits are counted as significant digits

Propagation of Uncertainty in Calculations

The general rule for determining the uncertainty δf when f is a function of several
variables, f = f(x,y,...,z), and assuming independent and random uncertainties in x, y, ..., z is:

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ME110-Advance Engineering Mathematics for ME Period: ___________________

Name of Student: ____________________________________________Course and Year: __________
Schedule (Time and Day): _____________________________________Final Rating: ______________
=================================================================================
10b. Numerical Methods
Assessment Task:

Discrete Algebra

1. In a group of 60 people, 27 like cold drinks and 42 like hot drinks and each person likes at least one of the two
drinks. How many like both coffee and tea?
2. In a group of 100 persons, 72 people can speak English and 43 can speak French. How many can speak

3. Let A and B be two finite sets such that n(A) = 20, n(B) = 28 and n(A ∪ B) = 36, find n(A ∩ B)
English only? How many can speak French only and how many can speak both English and French?

Errors

4. The radius of a circular rat race track is measured as 15.55 cm instead of the actual length 15.2 cm. Compute
the following in finding the area of the track
a. Absolute error
b. Relative error
c. Percentage error
5. A sphere is made of ice having radius 15 cm. Its radius increases from 15 cm to 15.5 cm. Find approximations
for the following:

a. change in the volume

b. change in the surface area

Accuracy

1.

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2.

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Student’s Corner
Write your feedback and learning in this lesson.

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