Welcome to the course Differential Equations for Engineers!

A differential equation is an equation for a function that contains derivatives of that function. Engineering students usually take a course on differential equations in their second year of study, after a full year of calculus. To study differential equations, students should already be able to differentiate and integrate some simple functions. This course also requires knowledge of complex numbers and the complex exponential function, matrices and the eigenvalue problem, and partial differentiation. If you haven't yet covered these topics, you can watch our supplemental videos.

If you haven’t already, watch the Promotional video to see if this course interests you. If it does, and you are not sure about your math skills, then try the diagnostic quiz . If you can pass this quiz, then you should be able to handle this course. If you have trouble with this quiz, then you need to brush up on your single variable calculus.

Course Materials

This course is divided into six weeks, each week focused on a specific topic. The first week is about first-order differential equations, the second and third weeks are about second-order differential equations, the fourth week is about the Laplace transform and series solution method, the fifth week is about systems of differential equations and the sixth week is about partial differential equations. After each video, I post some suggested math problems. Within each week, the videos and problems are divided into sections, and at the end of each section is an ungraded practice quiz . At the end of each week, there is a graded quiz .

Textbook

My lecture notes for this course can be downloaded from

http://www.math.ust.hk/~machas/differential-equations-for-engineers.pdf

My book is divided into lectures corresponding to the Coursera videos. At the end of each lecture are a list of problems , and my solutions to these problems are at the back of the book. I have also included all of the practice quizzes and their solutions . The pdf file is clickable, and it is easy to jump between the problems and their solutions .

After watching a video, I recommend that you read the corresponding lecture in my book to further cement the material in your mind.

Problems

After each video, there are some problems for you to solve . I recommend that you try to solve these problems. You cannot truly learn mathematics without doing problems . After you solve the Coursera problems, or get stuck, you can then read my suggested solutions in my book. It is also a good idea to write down the problems and your solutions in a notebook. You can then refer to this notebook when taking the assessed quizzes.

Quizzes and Grading

The ungraded practice quizzes at the end of each section will test your knowledge about the video lectures and the problems. These quizzes will prepare you for the graded quiz at the end of each week. After you attempt the practice quizzes , you can read my suggested solutions in my book. There are six graded quizzes and each graded quiz contains 10 questions. You will need to get six or more questions correct on each graded quiz to pass this course and be eligible for a verified certificate.

Discussion Forums

I review the discussion forums every day. Please communicate with me there. I am happy to try and answer any questions you may have.

Let's get started!

Jeff Chasnov