A Brief Introduction to Numerical Methods for Differential Equations

This tutorial introduces some basic numerical computation techniques that are useful for the simulation and analysis of complex systems modelled by differential equations. Such differential models, especially those partial differential ones, have been extensively used in various areas from astronomy to biology, from meteorology to finance. However, if we ignore the differences caused by applications and focus on the mathematical equations only, a fundamental question will arise: Can we predict the future state of a system from a known initial state and the rules describing how it changes? If we can, how to make the prediction? This problem, known as Initial Value Problem(IVP), is one of those problems that we are most concerned about in numerical analysis for differential equations. In this tutorial, Euler method is used to solve this problem and a concrete example of differential equations, the heat diffusion equation, is given to demonstrate the techniques talked about. But before introducing Euler method, numerical differentiation is discussed as a prelude to make you more comfortable with numerical methods.