Spring 2013 : Math 221 Homepage


To all the wonderful participants in this class, I had a really great time teaching such a talented and highly motivated bunch! A big thank you for your attention and patience!


     

     

This was the honors differential equations class. The aim of this class was to study techniques to solve first order and second order linear ordinary differential equations and subsequently systems of first order differential equations. The mantra was "try an exponential". The book used was "Differential Equations (KU Edition)" by Boyce and DiPrima. We also did a matlab session implementing Euler's method for estimation and a mathematica session about general equation solving (non-linear), mainly centered around DSolve and NDSolve. We also studied the method of annihilators (from outside the text) which introduced the students to differential operators. Each student also did a project which studied a differential equation in a concrete physical context (e.g. bungee jumping, shooting an arrow, radioactive systems, parachuting,...).

The class consisted of 11 students (after a few withdrawals), composed mainly of engineering sophomores.

     

     



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