6.055J | Spring 2008 | Undergraduate

The Art of Approximation in Science and Engineering

Related Resources

Interesting books

Engel, Arthur. Problem-solving Strategies. New York, NY: Springer, 1999. ISBN: 9780387982199.

Schmid-Nielsen, Knut. Scaling: Why is Animal Size So Important? New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780521319874.

Vogel, Steven. Life in Moving Fluids. 2nd rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780691026169.

Vogel, Steven. Comparative Biomechanics: Life’s Physical World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780691112978.

Pólya, George. Induction and Analogy in Mathematics. Vol. 1, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning. 1954. Reprint, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780691025094.

Interesting papers

West, Geoffrey B., James H. Brown, and Brian J. Enquist. “A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology.” Science 276, no. 5309 (April 4, 1997): 122-126.

West, Geoffrey B., James H. Brown, and Brian J. Enquist. “The Fourth Dimension of Life: Fractal Geometry and Allometric Scaling of Organisms.” Science 284, no. 5420 (June 4, 1999): 1677-1679.

Interesting comic strips

Dangers of the resistive grid (See also Problem 6 in Homework 4 of assignments.)

Course Info

Learning Resource Types
Problem Sets with Solutions
Online Textbook