For the 3rd edition the section on numerical methods has been considerably expanded to reflect their central role in PDE's. A treatment of the finite element method has been included and the code for numerical calculations is now written for MATLAB. Nonetheless the brevity of the text has been maintained. To further aid the reader in mastering the material and using the book, the clarity of the exercises has been improved, more routine exercises have been included, and the entire text has been visually reformatted to improve readability.
J. David Logan is Willa Cather Professor of Mathematics at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. He received his PhD from The Ohio State University and has served on the faculties at the University of Arizona, Kansas State University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. For many years he served as a visiting scientist at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. He has published widely in differential equations, mathematical physics, fluid and gas dynamics, hydrogeology, and mathematical biology. Dr. Logan has authored 7 books, among them A First Course in Differential Equations, 2nd ed., published by Springer.