APM 346 Partial Differential Equations
Instructor: Nicholas Hoell
E-mail:
[email protected]Class: Monday, Wednesday, & Friday from 9AM-10AM
Class Location: MP203
Course Website: http://www.math.toronto.edu/nhoell/APM346.html
DISCLAIMER: VERY IMPORTANT
This course is listed by the registrar as section L0101 with a separate, concurrent section L5101, taught by Prof. Victor Ivrii. Unlike what you may have experienced in other
courses at University of Toronto, in this case although these are listed as separate sections of the same course, the situation is much different. Namely, our textbook, grading
scheme, exams, final exam, quizzes, homework, etc are COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT. What this means is that any work you submit for my section counts only for
my section. Our courses shall cover roughly the same basic topics (hence them being
listed as the same course), but in a somewhat different order and with different grading
schema (hence the separate section). Since I have a feeling that even with this disclaimer
some of you may still not quite appreciate the distinction - the final exam for my section is NOT THE SAME as that given in Ivriis section.
You can read Victor Ivriis explanation of this (from LAST YEAR, hence the discrepancy
with the section numbers) at the following link:
http://forum.math.toronto.edu/index.php?topic=516.msg1997#msg1997
Teaching Assistants
Part of your tuition helps pay for University resources, one of the most valuable of which
is time you can get one-on-one help from very knowledgable teaching assistants. I encourage you to make use of them. This semester the TAs are
Evan Miller [email protected] - Wednesdays 1-2PM in HU lounge
Zi Sheng ( Jackson) Feng [email protected] - Tuesdays 3-4PM in BA6283 (only the
weeks following midterms)
Kyle Thompson [email protected] - Mondays 4-5PM in BA6283
who will have office hours each week as listed above.
Required Text
We will not be strictly following any one book in particular. Our required text will be
Applied Partial Differential Equations with Fourier Series and Boundary Value Problems" by
Richard Haberman, published by Pearson. We will be using the 5th edition. Other editions are fine but problem set question numbers will only correspond to the 5th edition.
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In my experience, textbooks on introductory partial differential equations vary tremendously and choosing one single book with all of the material (presented clearly) we will
use is unfortunately not possible. You may find the online texts listed below may be
more suitable. Explore!
Alternative (Possibly Helpful) Text
Many people like the book Partial Differential Equations, An Introduction", by Walter
Strauss, 2nd edition, Wiley. This provides a more conventional treatment of some of
the material well be covering with a somewhat different emphasis, more on the proof
side rather than the problem-solving side of the story.
Online Resources/Texts
I also highly recommend the lecture notes by Guillaume Bal available at
http://www.math.toronto.edu/nhoell/Bal_PDE.pdf
We will follow some of this material closely.
I also recommend the wonderful book for this course, by the inimitable Victor Ivrii,
available at the link below
http://www.math.toronto.edu/courses/apm346h1/20159/PDE-textbook/contents.html
Some material from lectures will be based on both free texts listed above.
Grading
Grades will be based according to some homework throughout the term, two midterm
exams and a final exam. Your final grade in the course will be determined by the following
Pop Quizzes 15%; the lowest will be dropped
Two Midterms 40% total; 25% for the highest, 15% for the lowest
Final Exam 45%
Optional problem sets will cover concepts discussed in the lectures as well as some material presented in the text. Problem sets will be offered a few times during the semester,
but not for credit, and we will also have occasional pop quizzes during the term. Working through the recommended problems is essential to success in this course.
Note on Exams
No electronic devices/aids will be allowed during the exams. It is the students responsibility to ensure that the allotted exam time is available.
Questions & Concerns
It is University policy that instructors need only reply to emails sent from University
email accounts. Acceptable emails are of the form [email protected],
[email protected], etc. I will not ever reply to a non-University email address (those from addresses like, say, [email protected] or
[email protected]). As for email etiquette, sending technical mathematics questions is fine if they are very short but I really encourage you to save longer
questions for the beginning Q&A part of the following lecture, or ask during office hours,
since this will offer the greatest benefit to the largest number of students.
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Academic Integrity (Important)
Cheating (including plagiarism) is very serious and, consequently, will be taken very seriously. Cheating can result in failure or worse. Dont do it! I caution you I am extremely
diligent in pushing for the maximum possible penalties for those found cheating. Collaboration on problem sets is fine, in fact I encourage it since discussing problems with
your peers helps bolster your problem solving abilities, but the write-up should be done
on your own, by your own hand. Any collusion during quiz or test situations will be thoroughly punished.
Attendance
I will not be taking attendance, however there are pop quizzes given during the semester.
Also, the best & easiest way to stay on top of the material is by attending lectures and
asking questions, so I encourage good attendance & participation.
Late Assignment Policy
No late assignments will be accepted without prior confirmation.
Prerequisites
Formal and official prerequisites for the course should be obtained from your departments undergraduate advisor (for students in the mathematics program, this is Donna
Birch).
Regardless of any formal requisites students need to be comfortable with standard vector calculus concepts like
The divergence theorem
Div, grad, curl and all that... (as found in the book with the same name by H.M.
Schey)
Integration in arbitrary dimensions
Various notations for partial derivatives
Moreover, we will be analyzing linear operators so some basic concepts from linear algebra will also be important. These include things like eigenvalue, dimension, basis,
kernel, rank, etc.
Goals & Course Description
We will cover a variety of topics within partial differential equations and explore some
of the recurring themes in the subject. Partial differential equations is a subject best
learned through case studies and we will, by examining several well-known equations
from physics, encounter general methodology for analyzing qualitative and quantitative behaviour of their solutions. We will be studying canonical examples of partial
differential equations from mathematical physics whose phenomenology is useful for
understanding (and even creating) more general models and clever solutions. No background in physics is assumed (though it certainly could be beneficial) however since the
canonical equations well be covering come from physics, and since we will be deriving
these equations whenever possible, you may occasionally encounter terminology that
may sound physicsy"; terms like energy", temperature", sound" etc. The terminology
will all have precise mathematical meanings for us so its very important to not panic if
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you hear phrases that sound like physics jargon you dont understand. For many of you
the jargon may even help build intuition.
The Menu
I will keep us, roughly, to the following schedule (dates refer to week containing the Monday falling on the given MM/DD):
9/14- Taxonomy of PDE, boundary conditions & well-posedness. Conservation
laws. Introduction to the Cast of Characters. Function spaces.
9/21- The transport equation and characteristics. See, e.g. http://www.math.toronto.
edu/courses/apm346h1/20129/L2.html.
9/28- The heat equation. Separation of variables. E.g. Ch. 2 of Haberman.
10/5- More on heat. Laplaces equation. Poissons equation.
10/12- Harmonic functions. Maximum principles. Fourier Series. Ch. 3 of Haberman.
First Midterm Wednesday, October 21 in BA2175 & BA2185 at 9AM
10/19- Fourier series. The wave equation & dAlemberts formula. E.g. Ch. 4 of
Haberman.
10/26- Maxwells Equations. Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problems. Rayleigh quotient. See e.g. Lecture 13 in Bals notes or Ch. 5 of Haberman.
11/2 - Diracs function. Greens functions. Some Fredholm Theory. See e.g. Lecture
21 in Bals notes or Ch. 9 of Haberman.
11/9- Greens functions and Fourier transform methods. E.g. Ch. 10 of Haberman.
Second Midterm Wednesday, November 18 in UC266 & UC273 at 9AM
11/16- More on Transform methods. E.g. Ch.10 of Haberman.
11/23 -More on Waves.
11/30 & 12/7- Buffer. Diracs equation if time permits.
In the above, Chapter numbers refer to the fifth edition of Habermans text and quite
often we will cover only certain sections within a given chapter.
