Lecture 28 



Today we began exploring numerical methods for solving ordinary differential equations, (ODE). I started with a short presentation about radioactive decay and how an ODE could be used to model the reduction of mass as a result of decay over a period of time. Given some starting mass, an initial condition, we saw an analytic solution to this initial value problem (IVP). I then solved the IVP using a Matlab numerical ODE solver.

I gave an overview of Euler's method for solving an IVP for an ODE. We saw the derivation of the method using a Taylor expansion. We also saw a visualization of Euler's method, sometimes called the tangent method.

ode2006.pdf  

Posted: Mon - November 13, 2006 at 08:21 AM          

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