Due Sunday, September 6, 11:59pm

Ideas

Section 1.2 and 1.3 of your text cover some elementary but fundamental ideas that you’ll carry with you for the rest of the course. In Section 1.2, you learn:

  • what a differential equation is, what its order is, ordinary versus partial differential equations,
  • what a solution to a differential equation is,
  • how to check that a function is a solution of a particular differential equation.

Section 1.3 focuses on differential equations of the form $\frac{dy}{dx} = f(x,y)$ because we can draw pictures representing these equations and their solutions: direction fields (sometimes called slope fields) and integral or solution curves.

As mentioned in the Week 0 checklist, none of these topics are actually new to you, but we’re putting them together slightly differently than you would have in your calculus classes.

Instructions

There is no WeBWorK set corresponding to Sections 1.2 and 1.3.

  1. Instead, you will each pick one exercise from the textbook homework from these sections listed in the schedule:
    • p.14: 1, 2(a-c,e-h), 4(a-f), 5, 6, 9 and p. 21: 1-11.
  2. Solve the problem completely, clearly showing each of the steps.
  3. Then, share your work as a new post on the OpenLab. Title your post by the section and problem number so we know which one you are completing. Select the category Sections 1.2 & 1.3 under “Document” on the right-hand-side of the screen before publishing your post.
  4. You may upload a photo of your solution to place in your post or, if you are ready, you can try typing it using LaTeX (see the other OpenLab assignment you have this week for instructions here).
  5. Try to choose a question that your classmates haven’t already posted. Try to make sure solutions for all the questions (from Section 1.2 especially) are posted. The idea of this assignment is that you as a class are crowdsourcing the solution guides for these sections.
  6. After you’ve posted your solution, check your classmates’ work and leave them a comment if you think you’ve found an error or have a question about something they wrote (or if you just want to congratulate them for producing some nice work).

You will receive participation credit for this post whether your solution is correct or not.