The College of the Holy Cross
Professor: John Little
Office: Swords 335
Office Phone: 793-2274
email: little@math.holycross.edu or jlittle@holycross.edu
Office Hours: MWF 10-12, TR 1-3, and by appointment.
The general term "applied mathematics" refers to the portions of the subject where mathematics is used to study phenomena of interest in the real world and to predict and/or control their behavior. Applied mathematics deals with the construction of mathematical models for real-world systems under consideration, analysis of the behavior of the models through mathematical techniques from calculus, linear algebra, and so forth, and comparison of the behavior of the models and the behavior of the real-world systems.
Mathematics 173 is the first semester of a full-year course on the branch of applied mathematics dealing with problems in heat conduction, vibration of strings and membranes, and related physical phenomena and mathematical models for these systems involving partial differential equations or "PDE" -- relations between the partial derivatives of an unknown function u and other, known functions.
For instance, one of the key examples that we will study in great detail is the problem of describing the conduction of heat through a thin, straight rod of material of known thermal properties. We will show that the temperature u(x,t) at location x within the rod and time t satisfies the heat equation (1):
a relation between the partial derivatives of the unknown function u = u(x,t) and a known function Q(x,t) which describes heat sources within the rod (Q = 0 if there are no sources). If we know the initial temperature distribution u(x,0) = f(x), and the ends of the rod are kept at constant temperature 0 (for instance), on physical grounds we expect the function u(x,t) to be determined for all t. The mathematical model is then the heat equation (1), the initial condition u(x,0) = f(x), and the boundary conditions u(0,t) = 0, u(L,t) = 0. We will learn several different techniques for solving partial differential equations like (1), that is for finding u(x,t) which satisfy the equation and any side conditions present, either by producing analytical formulas for the functions u(x,t) when this is possible, or when necessary, by deriving numerical approximations to their values at selected points.
Since (partial) derivatives are involved here, it should be clear that many topics from calculus, through Analysis 3 (Multivariable Calculus) will be needed here. (Indeed, we will need to go several steps farther and introduce additional topics from vector calculus in order to deal with two- and three-dimensional physical problems.) We will see that several topics from linear algebra also make appearances as we study the structure of solutions of various PDE.
The topics we will study this semester are as follows:
The text for the course is Elementary Applied Partial Differential Equations by Richard Haberman. We will cover most of the material in Chapters 1 - 5 this semester and continue on with Chapters 6 - 11 next semester.
To get you more directly involved in the subject matter of this course, several times during the semester, the class will break down into groups of 3 or 4 students for one or more days, and each group will work together for a portion of those class periods on a group discussion exercise. The exercises will be made up by me. I will be present and available for questions and other help during these periods. At the conclusion of some of these discussions, at times the class as a whole may reconvene to talk about what has been done, to sum up the results, to hear short oral reports from each group, etc. Each group will be responsible for a write-up of solutions for the questions from each discussion day, and those will be graded and and returned with comments. \bigskip Some of the other meetings of the class will be structured as lectures or computer laboratory days when that seems appropriate.
We will be using Maple on the departmental Sun workstation network quite extensively throughout the course to implement the techniques we discuss and to generate solutions to problems. Several class meetings will take place in the SW 219 computer lab and some of the individual problem sets will include problems for which you will need to use Maple. If you have not used Maple previously in a course here, please see me as soon as possible.
The assignments for the course will consist of:
If you ever have a question about the grading policy, or about your standing in the course, please feel free to consult with me.