In this book we describe the magic world of mathematical models: starting from real-life
problems we formulate them in terms of equations transform equations into algorithms and
algorithms into programs to be executed on computers. A broad variety of examples and exercises
illustrate that properly designed models can e.g.: predict the way the number of dolphins in
the Aeolian Sea will change as food availability and fishing activity vary describe the blood
flow in a capillary network calculate the PageRank of websites. This book also includes a
chapter with an elementary introduction to Octave an open-source programming language widely
used in the scientific community. Octave functions and scripts for dealing with the problems
presented in the text can be downloaded from https: paola-gervasio.unibs.it
quarteroni-gervasio This book is addressed to any student interested in learning how to
construct and apply mathematical models.
