Joseph M. Mahaffy

• Professor of Applied Mathematics
• Class Meets: BA 251 10:00-10:50 MWF
• Office Hours: MW 11-1, One hour to be Determined
• Office location: Physics 243
• Office phone: 619-594-3743
• Fax: 619-594-6746
• E-mail: mahaffy@math.sdsu.edu
• Text: Blanchard, Devaney, and Hall, Differential Equations, (Soon to Appear in the Bookstore)

This course is an introduction to differential equations. The approach that I will be using this semester centers on modern dynamical systems, which is more of a geometric approach to differential equations rather than standard formulaic approach given in classical first courses in differential equations. Since the textbook was delayed in publishing, I will begin this course using some notes that I have developed on the web (primarily for my Calculus for Biology students). Because of my background in Applied Mathematics, I will emphasize the practical applications of differential equations more than the theory, including some modeling development. These applications will be presented on this webpage as supplemental material to the text. This course will include a strong computational component using the computer languages Maple and MatLab. (There may be a CD included with the text that will have additional material, but i have not received a review copy of the current edition of the text.) I believe that all of our Math undergraduates need to have some proficiency in these two significant Mathematical programming languages. We may conduct a few lectures in BA 120 to give hands on experience with these software packages.

The grading of this course will be based on your performance on the homeworks, 3 hour exams, 2-3 take-home exams, and a final. I have yet to determine the weighting of each of these.

More information on the damped oscillator and its solution in Maple with a movie of the solution curves rotating can be found by clicking on the picture.