Math 221 Differential Equations Home Page

Math 221 Differential Equations Home Page Spring, 2003 Mark Brittenham

This page is devoted to materials and links specific to Mark Brittenham's Math 221 class for Spring, 2003. Here you may find lists of homework assignments, dates for exams, as well as lists of topics covered by these exams, an html-ized copy of the course summary (as well as Postscript and PDF), and anything else that might come up.

Solutions and handouts handed out in class.

Some differential equations links: A web-based Maple V front-end. (The only problem with the front-end is that it has no help file, so you need to memorize the appropriate commands in order to use it.) As an example, you can cut and paste this stuff in:

dsolve(diff(y(t),t)-y(t)^2,[y(t)]);

it will solve the differential equation [dy/dt] - y² = 0 .
(Apparently, there are slight differences in how versions 4 and 5 handle "dsolve"; see the page below.)

You can find more examples of Maple code on this page. Unfortunately, this front-end apparently stinks on returning graphical output, so the examples of direction fields on that page don't work very well. You'll have to cut and paste them into a real copy of MapleV.

Some (mathematical) links that might be of general interest:

A site called SOS Math at the Univ. of Texas at El Paso offers pages of material on topics ranging from polynomial long division, the quadratic formula, and trigonometric identities, to Taylor polynomials, the Cauchy-Riemann equations, and Matrix algebra.
Another site covering similar material, including solved homework problems for you to practice on, is kept in Belgium.

Dan Sloughter has a web page containing Java programs for visualizing various mathematical concepts. My favorite is one which will draw the Taylor polynomial approximations for y=sin(x) .

A site called Karl's Calculus Tutor currently covers most of what would qualify as first-semester calculus, and some of the second semester, as well.

Forget a geometry formula? Check this page at Trinity College.

A Java-enabled page for generating Pascal's triangle (or rather, the last two digits of each entry, which is good enough through the 24th line). What's the pattern of the even numbers in the triangle?!