We saw that a spreadsheet is a reasonably easy way to perform numerical differentiation. In our last workshop, we created – almost from scratch – a spreadsheet to compare the forward, backward and central divided difference approximations for the first derivative of a simple function. We started with FDA_BDA_CDA Exercise.xls, which had some of the basic text, but no formulas, and went from there. The objective was to get a sense for what it takes to create such a spreadsheet. This workshop looks at how to re-use that spreadsheet. Future workshops will cover more specialized and power numerical computing tools.

Re-using Numerical Differentiation Work

Re-using Root Finding Work

Last weeks instructions and post