I am interested in clean algorithms for approximating solutions and so I am interested in numerical analysis, but most of the books I have seen get bogged down in error analysis or they spend a lot of time and effort in squeezing an additional 2% efficiency from a classical algorithm. What are some works which just have the fundamental ideas and methods?



Reference request for conceptual numerical analysis
Are you looking for a reference that links the field of numerical analysis to mathematical concepts moreso than algorithmic concepts? Matrix Computations by Golub and Van Loan is a fairly important book that studies the algebraic structures of matrices and derives algorithms from those properties. If you're looking for an entry-level work, I keep a copy of Michael Heath's book Scientific Computing on my desk. It covers fundamental concepts and algorithms fairly well, in my opinion.


Do you have a specific problem domain in mind?


