18.03 | Spring 2010 | Undergraduate

Differential Equations

Course Description

Differential Equations are the language in which the laws of nature are expressed. Understanding properties of solutions of differential equations is fundamental to much of contemporary science and engineering. Ordinary differential equations (ODE's) deal with functions of one variable, which can often be thought of as …
Differential Equations are the language in which the laws of nature are expressed. Understanding properties of solutions of differential equations is fundamental to much of contemporary science and engineering. Ordinary differential equations (ODE’s) deal with functions of one variable, which can often be thought of as time.
Learning Resource Types
Lecture Videos
Simulations
Lecture Notes
Problem Sets with Solutions
Screenshot of Mathlet from the d'Arbeloff Interactive Math Project.
A spring system responds to being shaken by oscillating. When the input frequency is near a natural mode of the system, the amplitude is large. This can be understood in the frequency domain using the Laplace transform and its pole diagram. (Image courtesy Hu Hohn and Prof. Haynes Miller.)