DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS & LINEAR ALGEBRA WITH WOLFRAM MATHEMATICA

Abstract

with Wolfram Mathematica” student guidebook. This book is very comprehensive, but we hope it does not hold it back from being an enjoyable read. . This book is written primarily for students enrolled in the course “Engineering Mathematics III (Differential Equations and Linear Algebra)” (ENG200) here at Nazarbayev University (NU). This is a common compulsory course offered to all 2nd-year engineering students. There is a Computational Lab session in this course where students are expected to practice what they have learned in the theoretical sessions on computers with Wolfram Mathematica. Such a design of the course was credited to Prof. V. Zarikas (now at the University of Thessaly, Greece), who was the course leader when YW taught this course in Fall 2020 and Fall 2021. We want to thank Prof. Zarikas for selflessly sharing his course materials, which we have benefited from when developing this book. . Every topic has been summarized and supported by a sufficient number of solved problems. The present book has been designed to equip young engineering students with as much knowledge on all topics as is desirable from the point of view of the ENG 200 learning outcomes. Efforts have been made to make Differential equations and Linear algebra, the fundamental subjects in every engineering curriculum, more interesting and engaging with the help of Wolfram Mathematica language. In addition to the above-mentioned math skills, the book helps to learn a new programming software, Wolfram Mathematica. Just like learning any new skill, learning Wolfram Mathematica takes time, effort, and dedication. Therefore, we believe this journey will also benefit our readers to become self-disciplined learners. . BZ wishes to express her appreciation to Dr. YW, the instructor for the ENG200 course at NU. She is grateful to him for all the knowledge gained in the ENG200 course and for awakening her interest in learning the newly introduced Wolfram Mathematica tool/language. BZ hopes that this book, developed under the supervision of YW, will help the reader learn the basics of Wolfram Mathematica and use their acquired skills for further work/research. In addition, BZ thanks Dr. Devendra Kapadia for developing the interactive course “Introduction to Linear Algebra” for learning linear algebra using the Wolfram Language used in the preparation of this book and strongly encourages students to take a look at other Wolfram U Interactive Courses listed in the References section of the book. . AT would like to express her gratitude to Dr. YW for his invaluable advice, continuous support, and patience both during the ENG 200 course and the book writing process. Without YW’s encouragement and supervision, this book would not have been possible. AT also would like to thank her ENG 200 coursemates and friends for a cherished time spent together solving rigorous math problems and learning new skills in class and social settings. . YW would like to express his sincere gratitude to Prof. H. Tobita (University of Fukui, Japan), who introduced Wolfram Mathematica to him in Fall 2002. Since then, YW has been in love with this fantastic tool/language. Life would be different if he didn’t know about Wolfram Mathematica, and this book would certainly not have been possible. YW would also like to express his gratitude to students enrolled in the ENG200 course. YW has benefited from close interactions with students since he started to teach this course in Fall 2020. The two coauthors (BZ and AT) were also students enrolled in ENG200 in Fall 2021. This book would not have been finished now without those two brilliant and hardworking students/coauthors. . We acknowledge that this version of the book might have uncorrected mistakes, spelling/grammatical errors, and ambiguities. We are trying to eliminate them in a 2nd version (to be released in July 2023). We are grateful to the readers, students, instructors, or anyone who somehow encountered this book if they send us their valuable feedback so that we may make further improvements in future editions.