Programming in C++ for Engineering and Science

Book Preface

C++ is a general-purpose programming language that has both high-level and low-level language features. Bjarne Stroustrup developed it in 1979 at Bell Labs as a series of enhancements to the C programming language, which, although developed for system programming, has been used increasingly in engineering and scientific applications.

Because the first enhancement was the addition of classes, the resulting language was originally named “C with Classes,” but was renamed C++ in 1983. Along with overcoming some of the dangers and disadvantages of C, these and subsequent enhancements have resulted in a very powerful language in which very efficient programs can be written and developed using the object-oriented paradigm. A programming language standard for C++ (ISO/IEC148821998) was adopted in 1998 and revised in 2003 and is the basis for this text.

Background and Content

This text grew out of many years of teaching courses in computing, including programming courses intended for students majoring in engineering and science. Although the Fortran language was first used, these courses are now taught using C++. However, most C++ textbooks are written for the general college student and thus include examples and some content that is not aimed at or especially relevant to science and engineering students.

In this text, nearly all of the examples and exercises involve engineering and scientific applications, including the following (and many more):

• Temperature conversion
• Radioactive decay
• Einstein’s equation
• Pollution indexes
• Digital circuits
• Root finding, integration, differential equations
• Internet addresses
• A-C circuits
• Simulation
• Quality control
• Street networks
• Environmental data analysis
• Searching a chemistry database
• Oceanographic data analysis
• Electrical networks
• Coordinate transformations
• Data encryption
• Beam deflection
• Weather data analysis
• Oceanographic data analysis