Spring-Summer 1996

Cover

 

Announcements

 

Gulp!
By Courtney Coleman

A short note about numerical difficulties associated with plotting the Poincaré time section for a Duffing oscillator.

ODEs 2000: A Big Picture Course
By Chris Arney

"As part of the panel discussion on the content of introductory differential equations courses for the new century, I proposed that such a course give students the big picture of the components, concepts, practices, and value of dynamical systems..."

The Pendulum Revisited
By Robin A. Pennington

In traditional texts the pendulum equation has always been linearized for the purposes of analysis. When technology is incorporated into the course, the nonlinear model can be analyzed graphically. The following is one of the projects assigned in a projectbased Differential Equations course.

A Student Application of Matlab: Human Powered Vehicles
By Steve Drasco

This is a student-contributed paper on a mathematical model of human powered vehicles.

Hydraulics in an Unlikely Place
By William Mueller

An interesting model of the water level in a toilet tank that can be accompanied with data collection from actual toilets.

Book Review: Differential Equations: An Introduction with Mathematica by Clay Ross
By Marie Vanisko

"At first glance, this text appears to be very similar to many traditional differential equations books, with an added supplement on Mathematica. However, after closer inspection, it is clear that Ross' book is distinctly different. In particular, linear algebra plays a key role throughout the text, not only in the chapters on systems of differential equations..."

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