Content
More or less everything worth describing can be described by partial differential equations. While there is not much useful that one can say about partial differential equations in general, one can say a fair amount about broad classes of partial differential equations, and a great deal about some particular partial differential equations. Luckily these include the differential equation most relevant to physics.
The course will cover standard introductory material from the theory of partial differential equations. The approach will be fairly standard, except that I may emphasise the role of symmetry groups somewhat more than is usual.
The main emphasis will be on the three basic examples: the Laplace, diffusion and wave equations, with a brief discussion of Burgers' equation as an example of a non-linear equation.
Text
There is no official textbook for the course but complete notes will be provided here in both html and pdf formats.
Exams
There will be single exam in the usual exam period, worth 90% of your course mark.
Assignments
Assignments will count for 10% of your course mark. They will be posted here. They will not be distributed in class. They are due at the start of lecture on the day indicated. Solutions will be posted here once the assignment has been corrected.
| Assignment | Due | Problems | Solutions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 October | p1.pdf | s1.pdf |
| 2 | 15 October | p2.pdf | s2.pdf |
| 3 | 5 November | p3.pdf | |
| 4 | 26 November |
Tutorials
There are no tutorials for this course. I will sometimes take some time out from lecture to discuss a recent assignment or, less often, the current assignment, but usually I will just rely on you reading the posted solutions and paying attention to any hints given in the statement of the problems.
Past Incarnations
Technically this is a new module but there is a lot of overlap with the old MAU34210 and a little bit with the old MAU34204. Going further back, it shares a lot of content with MAU342T and MA3425 and some with MA3426. This information may be helpful when revising for exams, as the past exams for all of those modules should be available online.