Course Plan


A tentative plan for the course:

1) Introduction

  • Review: Green's theorem
  • Classification of second-order linear PDEs

2) Boundary value problems for ordinary differential equations (Sections 2.1-2.4, 4.1, 5.1)

  • The problem and boundary conditions
  • The maximum principle
  • Green's function
  • Variational formulation
  • Solution & error estimates using finite differences
  • Solution & error estimates using finite elements

3) Elliptic PDEs (Chapters 3-5)

  • Maximum principle
  • Green's function
  • Variational formulation
  • Finite difference methods for elliptic equations
  • Finite element methods for elliptic equations

4) The elliptic eigenvalue problem (Chapter 6)

  • Eigenfunction expansions
  • Numerical methods

5) Sparse matrix methods (Appendix B)

  • Direct methods for sparse linear systems
  • Iterative methods for sparse linear systems
  • Multigrid methods
  • Methods for sparse eigenproblems

6) Initial value problems for ODEs (Chapter 7)

  • The problem
  • Numerical solution

7) Parabolic PDEs  (Chapters 8-10)

  • The initial value problems
  • Solution by eigenvalue expansion
  • Variational formulation
  • Maximum principle
  • The finite difference method
  • The finite element method

8) Hyperbolic PDEs   (Chapters 11-13)

  • First order equations
  • Hyperbolic systems
  • Finite difference methods for hyperbolic problems
  • Finite element method for hyperbolic problems

9) Fourier and wavelet methods  (not in the book)

  • Spectral methods
  • A very brief introduction to wavelets


The chapters correspond to the textbook.

This is a tentative plan and it is subject to changes.

Contact: Prof. Doron Levy, dlevy@math.umd.edu                                                                                              Spring 2013