The goal of this book is to teach spectral methods for solving boundary
value, eigenvalue, and time-dependent problems. Although the title
speaks only of Chebyshev polynomials and trigonometric functions, the
book also discusses Hermite, Laguerre, rational Chebyshev, sinc, and
spherical harmonic functions. These notes evolved from a course I have
taught the past five years to an audience drawn from half a dozen
different disciplines at the University of Michigan: aerospace
engineering, meteorology, physical oceanography, mechanical engineering,
naval architecture, and nuclear engineering. With such a diverse
audience, this book is not focused on a particular discipline, but
rather upon solving differential equations in general. The style is not
lemma-theorem-Sobolev space, but algorithms- guidelines-rules-of-thumb.
Although the course is aimed at graduate students, the required
background is limited. It helps if the reader has taken an elementary
course in computer methods and also has been exposed to Fourier series
and complex variables at the undergraduate level. However, even this
background is not absolutely necessary. Chapters 2 to 5 are a self-
contained treatment of basic convergence and interpolation theory.