AMATH 403: Methods for Partial Differential Equations

Location/Time: 1:30-2:20, MTWF, LOW 216

Instructor: Dr. Andrea Barreiro

Email: barreiro@amath.washington.edu
Phone: (206) 543-6658
Office Hours: 418D Guggenheim Hall, date/time TBD

Teaching Assistant: Yun (Claire) Zhang

Email: yzhang@amath.washington.edu
Office Hours: Location TBD, date/time TBD

Course Website
The course website will be hosted on Catalyst: https://catalysttools.washington.edu/
workspace/akb6/11702/. This can also be navigated to from your MyUW page.
If you are enrolled in the course, you should be automatically granted access.

Course Description
Applications of partial differential equations; basic solution techniques for parabolic,
elliptic, and hyperbolic equations; Green's functions and integral transform methods;
linear and quasilinear first order equations, characteristics, shocks. Prerequisite: AMATH
402.

This course is intended for advanced undergraduates and/or master’s students, including
those for whom this is their first serious exposure to partial differential equations. The
course includes an extra hour for recitation (when the focus will be on review or
homework problems rather than new material), which will usually occur on Tuesdays and
will often by led by Ms. Zhang.

Textbook
Applied Partial Differential Equations, Richard Haberman, Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004,
4th Ed.

Schedule

Week Homework Quizzes Material*

1: 3/29-4/2 HW #1 assigned - 4/2 Intro to PDEs; Fourier series
NO CLASS 3/30
2: 4/5-4/9 HW #1 due - 4/9 Separation of variables for heat and wave
equations
3: 4/12-4/16 HW #2 assigned – 4/14 Laplace’s equation

4: 4/19-4/23 HW #2 due – 4/23 Quiz #1: 4/23 Inhomogeneous problems

5: 4/26-4/30 HW #3 assigned – 4/28 Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problems

6: 5/3-5/7 HW #3 due – 5/7 Higher dimensional problems

7: 5/10-5/14 HW #4 assigned – 5/12 Quiz #2: 5/14 Infinite domains/Fourier transform

8: 5/17-5/21 HW #4 due – 5/21 Characteristics, 1st order hyperbolic

9: 5/24-5/28 HW #5 assigned – 5/26 Green’s functions

10: 5/31-6/4 HW #5 due – 6/4 Quiz #3: 6/4 NO CLASS 5/31 – Memorial Day

* The material covered is approximate. Please consult the official class website as the
quarter progresses for updated information. Dates for homeworks and quizzes will be as
stated here, barring exceptional circumstance.

Grading
You will be graded on three quizzes (20% each), and 5 homework assignments (40%).
There will be no comprehensive final.

Homework will be due by 5 pm at my mailbox in 414 Guggenheim (or submitted

electronically on the Catalyst page, or at the EDGE office) on the day it is due.
Late homework will not be accepted, but I will drop your lowest score at the end of the
quarter.

A couple of notes about grading: the Instructor/TA may grade a subset of problems that
were assigned, so it is to your advantage to do all of the problems. Your homework
should be neat and readable: points may be deducted if we can’t read your solutions.