A short course in ordinary differential equations (Q743991)

When I was teaching advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses in qualitative theory of ordinary differential equations for mathematics students about fifteen years ago, I was looking albeit without success for a concise but informative text to be used for a one-semester course. I wish the text under review was available at that time as it would have solved my problems with the selection and arrangement of the material from a dozen of textbooks into my own lecture notes whose content significantly overlaps with that of the textbook written by Professor Kong. If I continued working on my lecture notes and wrote the textbook myself, it would have been quite similar to the one I hold in my hands now! The material in this book is organized into six chapters, the first three containing core material indispensable for most courses in theory of differential equations. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the subject and provides a number of fundamental results on the existence and uniqueness of solutions, maximal interval of existence and dependence of solutions on parameters and initial conditions. Foundations of the theory of linear differential equations are presented in Chapter 2, including general results for homogeneous and nonhomogeneous equations along with the analysis of homogeneous linear equations with constant and periodic coefficients. Chapter 3 collects important results on Lyapunov stability. Stability properties of linear equations, including stability by Lozinskii measures and perturbations of linear equations are considered here, as well as principal results related to the direct Lyapunov method for autonomous and nonautonomous equations. The second part of the textbook provides a nice selection of material related to the fundamental theory presented in the first part, but Chapters 4--6 are less dependent on each other; this allows instructors to shape own courses to their needs and liking. Chapter 4 introduces dynamical systems, presents detailed analysis of linear autonomous systems in the plane, proceeds to the discussion of Poincaré-Bendixson theory, periodic solutions and orbital stability, indices of critical points, and concludes with the study of flows of \(n\)-dimensional systems. Basic concepts and ideas of bifurcation theory are introduced in Chapter 5 where one-dimensional bifurcations for scalar equations and planar systems and Hopf bifurcations are explored. Finally, topics selected for Chapter 6 reflect some of research interests of Professor Kong and include oscillation and nonoscillation of solutions to second order linear differential equations as well as solvability of boundary value problems and Sturm-Liouville problems. All material is carefully organized and presented in a transparent manner. The text contains a large number of solved problems which illustrate well theoretical material. Each chapter concludes with a selection of exercises for independent study; hints and answers to exercises are collected in the end of the book along with a useful list of references and a subject index. Reflecting author's research and teaching experience for over twenty years, this delightful text is intended for ``general knowledge courses on the qualitative theory of ODEs for beginning graduate students in mathematics.'' In reviewer's opinion, the scope is much wider; the book may also serve as a good source of information for graduate students in physics, engineering, natural sciences, as well as for professionals who require analysis of qualitative properties of differential equations in their work. This skillfully written volume may be used as a core reading for a larger two semester course although it probably better suits a solid one-semester course; three possible scenarios for such courses are suggested by the author in the preface. It is worth noting that prerequisites are limited to advanced calculus, linear algebra and elementary differential equations which makes the text accessible to a rather wide audience. Undoubtedly, this book is a very valuable contribution to existing texts on qualitative theory of differential equations.