A Practical Review of Linear Ordinary Differential Equations

 

In your Dynamic Systems & Control course, you are going to need to solve elementary differential equations like a pro. You will need to solve the equations and interpret the solutions with very little effort. I know that all of you have taken a differential equations course in which all the necessary background has been covered. However, it has been my experience that students entering MEE 322 are a bit rusty.

The purpose of these notes is to refresh your memory. I have intentionally left out a bunch of the theory that would normally accompany a thorough discussion of differential equations. You can refer back to your differential equations text for that. Here, I try to cover just the most important aspects that you will need to be fluent with if you are going to succeed in your Dynamic Systems & Control course.

The link to the manuscript is here. Link to ODE review

Table of contents
  1. What Does it Mean to Solve a Differential Equation? (Quiz A)
  2. First Order, Constant Coefficient, Linear, Homogenious Differential Equations (Quiz B, Quiz C, Quiz D)
  3. Second Order Equations
  4. Higher Order Equations

More content to come…

In parentheses, I have listed the quizes associated with each chapter. If you are a MEE 322 student, you are required to get a perfect score on each of the quizzes (eventually).