21-272 Introduction to Partial Differential Equations

9 units, Carnegie Mellon University

A Partial Differential Equation PDE for short is a differential equation involving derivatives with respect to more than one variable. These arise in numerous applications from various disciplines. A prototypical example is the heat equation, governing the evolution of temperature in a conductor. This course will serve as a first introduction to PDEs, and will focus on the most important model equations. It will cover both analytical methods e.g. separation of variables, Greens functions, numerical methods e.g. finite elements and the use of a computer to approximate and visualize solutions. Time permitting, it will touch upon the mathematical ideas behind phenomena observed in nature e.g. speed of wave propagation, andor shocks in traffic flow.

Prerequisites: (21-259 or 21-268 or 21-269) and (21-260 or 21-261 or 33-231)

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