The exposition is presented in a friendly, easy-to-read, style, with mathematical ideas motivated from physical problems. Many exercises and worked examples have been added to this edition. Prerequisites include calculus and ordinary differential equations. A student who reads this book and works many of the exercises will have a sound knowledge for a second course in partial differential equations or for courses in advanced engineering and science. Two additional chapters include short introductions to applications of PDEs in biology and a new chapter to the computation of solutions. A brief appendix reviews techniques from ordinary differential equations.

From the reviews of the second edition:

"This second edition of the short undergraduate text provides a fist course in PDE aimed at students in mathematics, engineering and the sciences. The material is standard . Strong emphasis is put on modeling and applications throughout; the main text is supplied with many examples and exercises."

-R. Steinbauer, Monatshefte für Mathematik , Vol. 150 (4), 2007

"This is aunique book in the sense that it provides a coverage of the main topics of the subject in a concise style which is accessible to science and engineering students. . Reading this book and solving the problems, the students will have a solid base for a course in partial differential equations . ."

-Tibor Krisztin, Acta Scientiarum Mathematicarum , Vol. 74, 2008