Condition: The Geometry of Numerical Algorithms (Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften (349))

This book gathers threads that have evolved across different mathematical disciplines into seamless narrative. It deals with condition as a main aspect in the understanding of the performance ---regarding both stability and complexity--- of numerical algorithms. While the role of condition was shaped in the last half-century, so far there has not been a monograph treating this subject in a uniform and systematic way. The book puts special emphasis on the probabilistic analysis of numerical algorithms via the analysis of the corresponding condition. The exposition's level increases along the book, starting in the context of linear algebra at an undergraduate level and reaching in its third part the recent developments and partial solutions for Smale's 17^th problem which can be explained within a graduate course. Its middle part contains a condition-based course on linear programming that fills a gap between the current elementary expositions of the subject based on the simplex method and those focusing on convex programming.

Peter Bürgisser is an internationally recognized expert in complexity theory. He is associate editor of the journal Computational Complexity and he was invited speaker at the 2010 International Congress Mathematicians. Felipe Cucker is well known for his work on complexity over the real numbers, jointly with L. Blum, S. Smale and M. Shub. He also worked in learning theory and made seminal contributions to condition numbers in optimization and their probabilistic analyses. F.C. is former chair of the Society for the Foundations of Computational Mathematics and the current managing editor of the society's journal.