MA20010: Vector Calculus and Partial Differential Equations
Lecturer: Robert Scheichl
This is the home page for the Department of Mathematical Sciences
second year course on Vector Calculus and PDEs. The material taught
in this course is an essential toolkit in most branches of applied
mathematics and will be a prerequisite for most courses in applied
mathematics in the following semesters.
This home page will contain lecture notes, handouts and links to
web resources.
IMPORTANT Announcements !
Lecture Notes
Handouts
AIM - Computer Aided Assessment
In this unit, in addition to the usual problem sheets you will also have the
opportunity to get additional revison of the course material by doing
the online quizzes provided via the AIM computer
aided assessment package. This was piloted very
successfully last year and you can ask your fellow students in Year 3
about their experiences with it. The feedback was very positive.
AIM is a computer aided
assessment system developed at universities in Belgium and the UK to
enable high-level mathematics assessment on the web. The
AIM computer
aided assessment system links the MAPLE computer algebra system to a
web browser to perform sophisticated evaluation of students'
answers. This includes
- an algebraic equivalence check with a correct answer,
- partial credit,
- hints and feedback (both positive and negative) based on
mathematical properties of your answer,
- but most of all, you get immediate feedback without having to
wait for your tutor to mark your work.
This system has been tested and is also successfully used at other
universities in the UK (e.g. Birmingham, York, Sheffield). For more
information go to the
AIM home page
at the University of York. You can also have a look at the following
students comments from a survey carried out at the University of
British Columbia in Canada.
To use the Bath server please click here.
If you have any questions on how to use AIM you can refer to the online help.
If you want to use AIM from any computer off-campus you need to
create a VPN connection. This is necessary to get through the
university firewall and instructions on how to set this up can be
found on the following
BUCS webpage.
Matlab Codes (Fourier series & PDE solutions)
Here are the Matlab codes I used to visualise the convergence
behaviour of Fourier series and the Gibbs' Phenomenon
To get a better (visual) idea of what the solutions to the Laplace
Equation, to the Wave Equation and to the Diffusion Equation look
like, here are Matlab codes that plot the solutions to Questions
2,3 and 5 of Problem Sheet 10.
Problem Sheets
- Problem Sheet 1: Line Integrals
(due in Thursday, 12/10/2006, 2pm)
- Problem Sheet 2: Surface Integrals
and Conservative Vector Fields
(due in Thursday, 19/10/2006, 2pm)
- Problem Sheet 3: Volume Integrals
(due in Thursday, 26/10/2006, 2pm)
- Problem Sheet 4: Conservative Fields,
Gradients, and the Del-Operator
(due in Thursday, 02/11/2006, 2pm)
- Problem Sheet 5: Divergence, Gradient
and Curl
(due in Thursday, 09/11/2006, 2pm)
- Problem Sheet 6: Curvilinear
Coordinates
(due in Thursday, 16/11/2006, 2pm)
- Problem Sheet 7: Integral Theorems
(due in Thursday, 23/11/2006, 2pm)
- Problem Sheet 8: Stokes' Theorem and
Fourier Series
(due in Thursday, 30/11/2006, 2pm)
- Problem Sheet 9: Fourier Series
(due in Thursday, 07/12/2006, 2pm)
- Problem Sheet 10: PDEs - Separation of
Variables (Questions 1-3 due in
Thursday, 14/12/2005, 2pm)
Last updated 28/02/2008