Differential equations and mathematical modelling. A practical introduction including symmetry analysis. Translated from the English by Jörg Volkmann (Q2832003)

This textbook presents a successful introduction into the topic of ordinary differential equations as well as partial differential equations. Furthermore, it gives a good survey about mathematical modeling. The author applies both traditional solution methods and various modern methods. The book contains 9 chapters. Chapter 1 provides the necessary preliminaries from calculus, vector analysis, differential algebra and variational calculus. A large number of mathematical problems arising in physics, engineering and biomathematics are considered in Chapter 2. Ordinary differential equations are solved by standard methods in Chapter 3 whereas first order PDE and second order linear PDE are handled in Chapters 4, 5 respectively. The idea of application of Lie group analysis plays an important role throughout the entire book. In Chapter 6 it is applied to nonlinear differential equations and in Chapter 7 to nonlinear PDE. Chapter 8 is devoted to basic concepts and techniques of distribution theory and it introduces the invariance principle. Finally, this principle is then used in Chapter 9 for presenting a new group theoretical approach to initial value problems for several classes of PDE.NEWLINENEWLINEEach chapter has small problems sections at the end. The answers to most of the problems are given in the end of the book. The book is a nice and important complement to the large market of PDE textbooks. It can be recommended to each graduate or PhD student working in the field of PDE or mathematical modeling.NEWLINENEWLINEThe well-chosen bibliography contains 40 items.