Book Review: Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook

Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook
David M.Bourg
O'Reilly
ISBN-0-596-00879-1

The book teaches the use of Excel to various complex problems with an emphasis on the scientific and engineering types. The book is spread over fourteen chapters starting with nominal basics of excel and VBA and picking up speed to address the various types of problems that can be solved by Excel with help from VBA when needed.

The beginning chapters also address the topics of importing data into excel, creating charts of various types such as line,bar,3D surface and combination types. Amongst the interesting topics explained is the use of discrete Fourier transforms using Excel. This is done using the Fourier Analysis tool in the Analysis ToolPak. Further power spectrum calculation, band pass filter calculation, the filtered data calculation and their respective visualizations can be obtained on the excel spreadsheet. Some of the useful mathematical functions provided by Excel such as summation of various types, division, multiplication, manipulation of matrices, complex number function usage, etc. are explained in simple format. There is the explanation of use of excel for curve fitting and regression calculations including the advanced topics such as assessing the goodness of fit and computing the confidence intervals. The methods of solving equations is also discussed. These include the method to find root graphically, solving nonlinear equations iteratively, automating tedious problems with VBA, solving linear systems, tackling nonlinear systems of equations and using classical methods for solving equations.

Excel is also used for numerical integration and differentiation including implementing the trapezoidal rule, calculating the second moment of an area and dealing with double integrals. For the readers having the necessity to solve differential equation problems, the book explains some of the methods to solve both the ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations. The Runge Kutta method amongst others is explained for solving the ordinary differential equations. Amongst the other methods Finite Element Method to a nonlinear problem can be solved in Excel.

The various components of optimization analysis such as traditional linear programming, resource allocation optimization, etc. are also shown to be solved using Excel. The major attraction is programming a genetic algorithm for optimization using VBA. The concluding chapter tackles the problems of financial nature such as computing the present value, calculating the future value, figuring the required rate of return, assessing net worth, estimating the rate of return, solving inverse problems and the like.

The book is filled with real world examples of solutions to scientific and engineering problems. A utility book for the science and engineering students, the book is also recommended for the Excel and other spreadsheet enthusiasts. One possible concern that remains unaddressed is much of the topics covered in this book can be attempted on the open source spreadsheet softwares used on the Linux and similar OS since quite a lot of engineering and scientific work is gravitating towards open source to reduce the costs in addition to other benefits.