Elementary Differential Equations

by William E. Boyce

differential equations

Genres: Mathematics, Reference, Textbooks, Nonfiction, Science, Technical, Education

6 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

Reviews

[WarpDrive]

A well-written, solid and reliable book about ordinary differential equations, tailored for undergraduate-level students.

Conceptually lucid, provided with many relevant exercises, this book explores the whole subject at beginner-intermediate level, and it requires only previous knowledge of linear algebra and multivariate calculus.

The progression is gentle, and there are also some items (such as numerical analysis, Bessel's equations, nonlinear/almost linear systems and stability, and Liapunove's second method) that are well explained in this book and that are not always present at this introductory-intermediate level.

I like the the fact that the theoretical analysis is always supported with many examples, exercises and graphs, and I appreciated the author's approach of utilizing a mixture of numerical and analytical techniques to solve some of the more complex problems. Just note that this book has an "applicative" and pragmatic focus, so if you are mostly interested in a comprehensive theoretical framework of the subject, then this book is probably not ideal.

A pleasure to read, perfect for a quick but not trivial review / overview of the subject. 4 stars.

[Gabriel Mintzer]

I enjoyed reading this book because it highlights a number of important techniques for solving differential equations as well as approximating solutions to others. I especially enjoyed the visuals, which helped clarify many important concepts, especially the approximation of nonlinear differential equations by linear ones. The section regarding the applications of the theory of differential equations to modeling population dynamics and chaos is great, too. Overall, I would suggest this book to anyone who plans on studying science or mathematics.

[Erickson]

Skipped the last sections on nonlinear ODEs. This book is excellent for undergraduate level entry into ODE, with countless exercises typical of early undergraduate courses.

[Alexander]

As an applied mathematics textbook, this textbook was fantastic, however as a guide to help someone gracefully move from advanced calculus to differential equations, this book lacks power. This may not have been the intention of Boyce in the first place, but I cannot give it five stars as a result.

[Jessica]

terrible class, but the book was helpful and easy to read and understand.

[dead letter office]

Um... oops. Next time I'll definitely use Blanchard, Devaney, and Hall. My bad.

[Megan]

This isn't a great textbook.

[Mike]

Better as a reference for those who already know the material than as a textbook for those who are still learning.

[Ryan Pennell]

I felt that through reading the chapters and doing the example problems that for the most part this book was a good at explaining the material.

[Ale]

This textbook was not very helpful. It was a tedious read; as such, I relied heavily on lecture notes for studying instead of the text.