Textbook in PDF format

These notes are for a one-quarter course in differential equations. The approach is to tie the study of differential equations to specific applications in physics with an emphasis on oscillatory systems. The following two quotes by V. I. Arnold express the philosophy of these notes. Mathematics is a part of physics. Physics is an experimental science, a part of natural science. Mathematics is the part of physics where experiments are cheap. In the middle of the twentieth century it was attempted to divide physics and mathematics. The consequences turned out to be catastrophic. Whole generations of mathematicians grew up without knowing half of their science and, of course, in total ignorance of any other sciences. They first began teaching their ugly scholastic pseudo-mathematics to their students, then to schoolchildren (forgetting Hardy’s warning that ugly mathematics has no permanent place under the Sun). Since scholastic mathematics that is cut off from physics is fit neither for teaching nor for application in any other science, the result was the universal hate towards mathematicians— both on the part of the poor schoolchildren (some of whom in the meantime became ministers) and of the users