Differential Equations: A Primer for Scientists and Engineers: (Springer Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics and Technology)

Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers is a book designed with students in mind. It attempts to take a concise, simple, and no-frills approach to differential equations. The approach used in this text is to give students extensive experience in main solution techniques with a lighter emphasis on the physical interpretation of the results. With a more manageable page count than comparable titles, and over 400 exercises that can be solved without a calculating device, this book emphasizes the understanding and practice of essential topics in a succinct fashion. At the end of each worked example, the author provides the Mathematica commands that can be used to check the results and where applicable, to generate graphical representations. It can be used independently by the average student, while those continuing with the subject will develop a fundamental framework with which to pursue more advanced material. This book is designed for undergraduate students with some basic knowledge of precalculus algebra and a first course in calculus.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction.- 2. First Order Equations.- 3. Mathematical Models with First-Order Equations.- 4. Linear Second-Order Equations.- 4. Higher-Order Equations.- 5. Mathematical Models with Second-Order Equations.- 6. Higher-Order Linear Equations.- 7. Systems of Differential Equations.- 8. The Laplace Transformation.- 9. Series Solutions.- A. Algebra Techniques.- B. Calculus Techniques.- C. Table of Laplace Transforms.- D. The Greek Alphabet.

About the Author :
Born and educated in Romania, Prof. Constanda is Emeritus Professor from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Christian Constanda currently holds the Charles W. Oliphant Endowed Chair in Mathematical Sciences at the University of Tulsa and the directorship of the Center for Boundary Integral Methods. He has been a prolific author/editor for Birkhauser and for Springer for many years. Constanda has authored several successful texts with CRC press and other publishers as well. His most recent Springer Copernicus title "Dude, Can you Count?" has sold 848 copies to date. Other authored volumes with Springer include "Variational and Potential Methods for a Class of Linear Hyperbolic Evolutionary Processes" (SMM). Prof. Constanda has published several edited volumes with Birkhauser.

Review :
From the reviews: "The author of this book does a does a very creditable job of providing the basic material of ordinary differential equations. ... The book is largely aimed at average students in mathematics, science or engineering. The author suggests that stronger students can use the text as a bridge to more specialized books or more advanced courses. ... There are many exercises." (William J. Satzer, MAA Reviews, November, 2013) "The author writes this book respecting his readers and caring about the way of exposing his ideas. The book is written in a style that uses words as a bonding agent between consecutive mathematical passages, which creates a pleasant and comfortable lecture. ... The book contains 232 worked examples and 810 exercises. ... We kindly recommend this book to future engineers and scientists as well as to all those interested in the topic, who encounter differential equations in their professional work." (Alexandru Negrescu, zbMATH, Vol. 1272, 2013)