ABSTRACT
Numerical analysis is the branch of mathematics that addresses solving mathematical problems with computers in a search for numerical answers, as opposed to symbolic answers. R was developed based on the S programming language to provide a domain-specific language for statistics. R is also free software. This chapter is concerned with the efficiency and precision. It examines each of these concepts in turn and learns how to apply them to numerical analysis. The chapter reviews the different algorithms for evaluating polynomials. It focuses on a few data types that directly support numerical analysis, either as the input or the output. The chapter discusses data frames, a special type of matrix with named properties that is optimized for use by many of the statistical functions in R. It deals with Boolean data types, which provide critical support to all of R. The chapter presents a complete implementation of a piecewise summation algorithm.
