Preface

Summary

This book is for people who want to solve ordinary differential equations (ODEs), both initial value problems (IVPs) and boundary value problems (BVPs) as well as delay differential equations (DDEs). Solving ODEs with MATLAB is a text for a one-semester course for upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students in engineering, science, and mathematics. Prerequisites are a first course in the theory of ODEs and a survey course in numerical analysis. Implicit in these prerequisites is some programming experience, preferably in Matlab, and some elementary matrix theory. Solving ODEs with MATLAB is also a reference for professionals in engineering, science, and mathematics. With it they can quickly obtain an understanding of the issues and see example problems solved in detail. They can use the programs supplied with the book as templates.

It is usual to teach the three topics of this book at an advanced level in separate courses of one semester each. Solving ODEs with MATLAB provides a sound treatment of all three topics in about 250 pages. This is possible because of the focus and level of the treatment. The book opens with a chapter called Getting Started. Next is a chapter on IVPs. These two chapters must be studied in order, but the remaining two chapters (on BVPs and DDEs) are independent of one another. It is easy to cover one of these chapters in a one-semester course, but the preparation and sophistication of the students will determine whether it is possible to do both.