ABSTRACT
Most of the physical phenomena encountered in engineering problems can be described by partial differential equations because these phenomena follow the laws of thermodynamics in terms of mass, momentum, and energy conservation. A differential equation is a mathematical function that contains derivatives of its dependent variable or variables with respect to an independent variable or several independent variables. Very often, these independent variables represent spatial locations in a physical space and temporal variations with respect to time. Differential equations can be classified as ordinary or partial, linear or nonlinear, or time independent or time dependent, and by their order and dimension, among others. This chapter reviews some common ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations and links them to the physics of many engineering problems. It also illustrates Stoke's theorem and presents a brief review of matrix algebra.
