I have used this book as the main textbook in the differential equation course in Spring semester 2020. Overall, the book consists of well-organized chapters and connects with each chapter smoothly. I think it is a good textbook when teaching the undergraduate level course, ordinary differential equations during one semester. Some who want to cover partial differential equations chapters may need one more semester.
This textbook contains all of the topics that are usually covered in an undergraduate course on ordinary differential equations and has a section devoted to partial differential equations of the second order. The text does satisfy the requirements of the Ohio transfer module. It can be used for a course targeting math majors as well as a course on elementary differential equations for engineering majors. Comparison of different methods and their limitations provided in the text is very useful. It is a fine quality textbook. There are only two topics that I would add or modify. (1) I would add a discussion of the application of the Laplace transform to the higher order equations and systems. In the current edition it seems to be covered only for the equations of the second order due to the placement of the section on the Laplace transform. (2) I would add the concept of the equilibria and their stability for the first order autonomous equations as well as introduce traditional terminology for the equilibria in two-dimensional systems (saddles, nodes, ...) and a discussion of their stability.
Elementary Differential Equations with Boundary Value Problems (6th Edition) book pdf
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Much of this book is great, but it is unfortunately not sufficient for our first-semester differential equations course. The text would need modifications to include all the appropriate content and applications. Personally, the colored subsections (in red) make the subsections blend into the rest of the text. This may be a problem if printed, and may be difficult for color-blind readers. Additionally, the first chapter has few problems compared with the later sections, and it seems that would be a good place for many problems, as it is the students' introduction to the content. The errors seem particularly confusing in the table of contents, and I would like to see those fixed.
Despite all those comments, this author has presented several concepts in an enlightening manner that I think will be beneficial to students. Variation of parameters and integrating factor in particular. I would certainly consider modifying this text with attribution to use sections of it in a differential equations course. There are a lot of good problems throughout the text, and good examples.
With 13 chapters covering standard topics of elementary differential equations and boundary value problems, this book contains all materials you need for a first course in differential equations. Given the length of the book with 797 pages, the...read more
With 13 chapters covering standard topics of elementary differential equations and boundary value problems, this book contains all materials you need for a first course in differential equations. Given the length of the book with 797 pages, the instructor must select topics from the book for his/her course. I believe that materials from Chapter 1 to Chapter 10, except possibly Chapter 7, should be covered in the course, while the last three chapters could serve as additional reading materials for students.
As the book covers standard topics of differential equations and boundary value problems, the contents of the book will continue to serve students for a long period of time. Without specifying what technologies should be used, the instructor can choose the computer software to use in his/her course. This is great for the future use of the book given that technology is rapidly changing.
The text adequately covers the topics expected in an introduction to differential equations textbook. It seems to be quite comparable to other intro to ODE books that I've seen (ones that students pay a lot of money to use). A couple of differences between this book and others are the use of variation of parameters, which is introduced early and used throughout the book, and the separation of application problems into their own chapters. Separating the application problems allows for instructors to skip these chapters if they wish. My personal preference is to integrate them into the other chapters, but separating them is a valid choice. A comprehensive index is included, and I particularly like that page numbers in the index are links to those pages in the text. 2ff7e9595c
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