John Trangenstein is Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at Duke University in Durham North Carolina. He was a professor at Duke from 1991 to 2011. Previously he was a Mathematician in the Applied Mathematics Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1986 to 1991, a Research Specialist at Exxon Production Laboratory in Houston from 1981 to 1986, a Mathematician at S Cubed in San Diego from 1979 to 1981, and an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of California at San Diego from 1975 to 1979. He received his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University in 1975, and his SB degree from the University of Chicago in 1972. He has authored two other book, with Cambridge University Press, namely Numerical Solution of Hyperbolic Partial Differential Equations (2009) and Numerical Solution of Elliptic and Parabolic Partial Differential Equations (2013).