MAT355 Differential Equations

Kevin Carlin	Fall 1997
MA355.01     	TR 11:30

Text

Coddington, Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations, Dover, 1989.

Topics

Introduction: differential equations, examples from science, order of a differential equation, standard form, linear differential equations.

Preliminaries: complex numbers, calculus of complex functions, the exponential function.

First order equations: integration revisited, linear equations, separable equations, exact differentials.

Linear equations with constant coefficients: second order homogeneous equations, independence, second order inhomogeneous equations, variation of constants, higher order equations, annihilator method.

Linear equations with variable coefficients: non-singular equations, reduction of order, power series solutions, regular singularities.

Existence and uniqueness of solutions: successive approximation, Lipschitz conditions, convergence, uniqueness, systems of differential equations and higher order equations.

Grading

There will be eight quizzes, two 75-minute tests during the semester and a two hour final exam. Your final grade will be based on 500 points:

8 quizzes @ 20 points 160
2 tests @ 100 points 200
Final exam @ 140 points 140
500

All grades are based on partial credit and will be adjusted according to difficulty.

voice mail: 7563e-mail: kcarlin@assumption.edu
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