The computer as a teaching tool in ordinary differential equations (Q1095291)

This paper reflects some aspects of the author's experience as mathematical educator in the field of elementary differential equations (ODEs) at the University of Iowa. Due to the actual availability of microcomputers and their importance in the field of mathematics and its applications, the author claims that an elementary course in ODEs should contain not only the usual analytical techniques but also numerical methods for its solution. Here some elementary methods and real life problems are considered and more details about them can be seen in a textbook by the author published in 1985. It must be noted that the numerical methods referred to in this paper and in the textbook are so elementary that probably the students may have an unrealistic view of the numerical solution of ODEs.