Based on his extensive experience as an educator, F. G. Tricomi wrote this practical and concise teaching text to offer a clear idea of the problems and methods of the theory of differential equations. The treatment is geared toward advanced undergraduates and graduate students and addresses only questions that can be resolved with rigor and simplicity.
Starting with a consideration of the existence and uniqueness theorem, the text advances to the behavior of the characteristics of a first-order equation, boundary problems for second-order linear equations, asymptotic methods, and differential equations in the complex field. The author discusses only ordinary differential equations, excluding coverage of the methods of integration and stressing the importance of reading the properties of the integrals directly from the equations. An extensive bibliography and helpful indexes conclude the text.