MATH 242 Section 1 Elementary Differential Equations  Fall 2002 Professor Robert Sharpley Meets: MWF  9:05 - 9:55 in LeConte College 405 Instructor Information  Office:   LeConte 313 D  Office Hours:    MWF 10-11, or by appointment.

Loaded at 9:45 am on Friday - Dec. 13   Final Results Have a good Holidays!

Course Information

Catalogue Description:    Ordinary differential equations of first order, higher order linear equations, Laplace transform methods, series methods; numerical solution of differential equations. Applications to physical sciences and engineering. Introduction to programming desirable.

Course Topics:    The course will cover the general topics contained in chapters 1-5, 7, and 9 of the text. These topics include

• analytical methods of solving Ordinary Differential Equations of first and higher orders. In particular, equations will be classified and methods will be developed to apply to these special classes.
• development of transform methods (Laplace) to solve differential equations and to study their solutions.
• the modeling of dynamic processes as differential equations: mixture problems, mechanical systems, RLC circuits, population growth, and predator-prey populations.
• use of the expert system computational algebra package Maple.
• direction fields (flows), phase portraits, and an introduction to qualitative differential equations.
• development of quantitative methods to numerically approximate the solutions to differential equations including Runge-Kutta methods and multi-step approximations.
• Other topics such as systems of differential equations, as time permits.

Grading scheme: Homework will be assigned on a regular basis but will not be collected. There will, however, be daily/weekly quizzes over the assigned homework and the lectures which will be collected and graded. This will make up 15% of the final grade.
  There will be 3 scheduled tests during the semester. No makeup tests will be given, but the lowest grade of the three test grades will be dropped and each of the two remaining tests will account for 25% of the course grade.
  The Final Exam will count 35%.

Attendance: Classroom attendance is required according to official university policy.

Important Course Dates:

 

August 23   (Friday) August 28   (Wednesday) September 2   (Monday) September 20   (Friday) October 3   (Thursday) October 14-15   (Mon.-Tues.) October 23   (Wednesday) November 7   (Tuesday) November 22   (Friday) Nov. 27- Dec. 1   (Wed.-Sun.) December 6   (Friday) December 9   (Monday, 4 pm-7 pm) Classes Begin Last Day for Withdrawal w/o penalty Labor Day - no classes Test 1 Last Day for Withdrawal w/o WF grade Fall Break - no classes Test 2 Election Day - no classes Test 3 Thanksgiving Holidays - no classes Classes End Review Session (LeConte 316) December 11   (9 am, Wednesday)   Final Exam

Computational Work Sheets and Course Supplements

Homework Assignments

Tests and Samples
 

This page maintained by Robert Sharpley (sharpley@math.sc.edu) and last updated August 16, 2002. This page ©2002-2003, The Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina. URL: http://www.math.sc.edu/~sharpley/math242