Dean Duffy

"Dean, 18, is a baseball player whose glory days are behind him. At 15, he pitched for the world championship Little League team, and as a freshman he hit a game-winning grand slam. But after his arm gave out, he moved to first base and plunged into a two-year batting slump, losing any hope for a college scholarship. Since graduation he's been sliding sideways, wondering what his future holds." --Starred, School Library Journal

Dean Duffy

Since publication of the first edition over a decade ago, Green’s Functions with Applications has provided applied scientists and engineers with a systematic approach to the various methods available for deriving a Green’s function. This fully revised Second Edition retains the same purpose, but has been meticulously updated to reflect the current state of the art. The book opens with necessary background information: a new chapter on the historical development of the Green’s function, coverage of the Fourier and Laplace transforms, a discussion of the classical special functions of Bessel functions and Legendre polynomials, and a review of the Dirac delta function. The text then presents Green’s functions for each class of differential equation (ordinary differential, wave, heat, and Helmholtz equations) according to the number of spatial dimensions and the geometry of the domain. Detailing step-by-step methods for finding and computing Green’s functions, each chapter contains a special section devoted to topics where Green’s functions particularly are useful. For example, in the case of the wave equation, Green’s functions are beneficial in describing diffraction and waves. To aid readers in developing practical skills for finding Green’s functions, worked examples, problem sets, and illustrations from acoustics, applied mechanics, antennas, and the stability of fluids and plasmas are featured throughout the text. A new chapter on numerical methods closes the book. Included solutions and hundreds of references to the literature on the construction and use of Green's functions make Green’s Functions with Applications, Second Edition a valuable sourcebook for practitioners as well as graduate students in the sciences and engineering.

Methods for Solving Mixed Boundary Value Problems An up-to-date treatment of the subject, Mixed Boundary Value Problems focuses on boundary value problems when the boundary condition changes along a particular boundary. The book often employs numerical methods to solve mixed boundary value problems and the associated integral equations. Straightforward Presentation of Mathematical Techniques The author first provides examples of mixed boundary value problems and the mathematical background of integral functions and special functions. He then presents classic mathematical physics problems to explain the origin of mixed boundary value problems and the mathematical techniques that were developed to handle them. The remaining chapters solve various mixed boundary value problems using separation of variables, transform methods, the Wiener–Hopf technique, Green’s function, and conformal mapping. Decipher Mixed Boundary Value Problems That Occur in Diverse Fields Including MATLAB® to help with problem solving, this book provides the mathematical skills needed for the solution of mixed boundary value problems.

Just out of high school and already washed up?

Operations Research: A Practical Introduction is just that: a hands-on approach to the field of operations research (OR) and a useful guide for using OR techniques in scientific decision making, design, analysis and management. The text accomplishes two goals. First, it provides readers with an introduction to standard mathematical models and algorithms. Second, it is a thorough examination of practical issues relevant to the development and use of computational methods for problem solving. Highlights: All chapters contain up-to-date topics and summaries A succinct presentation to fit a one-term course Each chapter has references, readings, and list of key terms Includes illustrative and current applications New exercises are added throughout the text Software tools have been updated with the newest and most popular software Many students of various disciplines such as mathematics, economics, industrial engineering and computer science often take one course in operations research. This book is written to provide a succinct and efficient introduction to the subject for these students, while offering a sound and fundamental preparation for more advanced courses in linear and nonlinear optimization, and many stochastic models and analyses. It provides relevant analytical tools for this varied audience and will also serve professionals, corporate managers, and technical consultants.

A First Course in Chaotic Dynamical Systems: Theory and Experiment, Second Edition The long-anticipated revision of this well-liked textbook offers many new additions. In the twenty-five years since the original version of this book was published, much has happened in dynamical systems. Mandelbrot and Julia sets were barely ten years old when the first edition appeared, and most of the research involving these objects then centered around iterations of quadratic functions. This research has expanded to include all sorts of different types of functions, including higher-degree polynomials, rational maps, exponential and trigonometric functions, and many others. Several new sections in this edition are devoted to these topics. The area of dynamical systems covered in A First Course in Chaotic Dynamical Systems: Theory and Experiment, Second Edition is quite accessible to students and also offers a wide variety of interesting open questions for students at the undergraduate level to pursue. The only prerequisite for students is a one-year calculus course (no differential equations required); students will easily be exposed to many interesting areas of current research. This course can also serve as a bridge between the low-level, often non-rigorous calculus courses, and the more demanding higher-level mathematics courses. Features More extensive coverage of fractals, including objects like the Sierpinski carpet and others that appear as Julia sets in the later sections on complex dynamics, as well as an actual chaos "game." More detailed coverage of complex dynamical systems like the quadratic family and the exponential maps. New sections on other complex dynamical systems like rational maps. A number of new and expanded computer experiments for students to perform. About the Author Robert L. Devaney is currently professor of mathematics at Boston University. He received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley under the direction of Stephen Smale. He taught at Northwestern University and Tufts University before coming to Boston University in 1980. His main area of research is dynamical systems, primarily complex analytic dynamics, but also including more general ideas about chaotic dynamical systems. Lately, he has become intrigued with the incredibly rich topological aspects of dynamics, including such things as indecomposable continua, Sierpinski curves, and Cantor bouquets.