Boundary Value Problems/Lesson 5.1

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Lesson Plan

Requirements of student preparation: The student needs to have worked with vectors. If not the student should obtain suitable instruction in vector calculus.

• Subject Area: A review of vectors, vector operations, the gradient, scalar fields ,vector fields, curl, and divergence.
• Objectives: The learner needs to understand the conceptual and procedural knowledge associated with each of the following
  
  • Vectors,
    
    • Definition of vectors in ${\mathcal {R}}^{n}$ for $n=1,2,3$
    • Vector Operations
      
  • Scalar and vector fields
  • Gradient $\nabla$, divergence $\nabla \circ$, curl $\nabla \times$ and covariant derivatives on fields
  • Composite operators such as $\nabla \circ \nabla \mathbf {v}$

• Activities: These structures are to help you understand and aid long-term retention of the material.
  • Lesson on Vectors, their associated properties and operations that use vectors.
  • Lesson on Scalar and Vector fields
  • Lesson on Operations on scalar and vector fields
• Assessment: These items are to determine the effectiveness of the learning activities in achieving the lesson objectives.
  • Worksheets
  • Quizzes
  • Challenging extended problems.
  • Student survey/feedback
  • Web analytics

Lesson on Vectors

We will be using only real numbers in this course. The set of all real numbers will be represented by ${\mathcal {R}}$.

Definition of a scalar:

A scalar is a single real number, $\displaystyle a\in {\mathcal {R}}$. For example $3$ is a scalar.

Definition of a real vector:

A real vector, $\displaystyle v$ is an ordered set of two or more real numbers.

For example: $\displaystyle v=(1,2)$ , $\displaystyle w=(5,0,50,-1.25)$ are both vectors. We will use the notation of $\displaystyle v_{i}$ where the lower index $\displaystyle i=1..n$ represents the individual elements of a vector in the appropropriate order.

Ex: The vector $\displaystyle v=(3,-7)$ has two elements, the first element is designated $\displaystyle v_{1}=3$ and the second is $\displaystyle v_{2}=-7$

Dimension of a vector:

The dimension of a vector is the number of elements in the vector.

Ex: Dimension of $\displaystyle v=(-1.25,0,-2,-2)$ is $n=4$

Vector Operations:

To refresh your memory, for vectors of the same dimension the following are valid operations:
Let $v=(a,b)$ and $u=(c,d)$ for each of the following statements.

• Addition: $\mathbf {v+w} =(a,b)+(c,d)=(a+c)+(b+d)$

Ex: $v=(2,5)$ and $u=(6,1)$ then $v+w=(8,6)$

• Multiplication by a scalar, $\displaystyle k$: $k(v)=k(a,b)=(ka,kb)$
  

Ex: $k=2$ and $k(-2,4)=2(-2,4)=(-4,8)$

• Cross Product $\mathbf {u} \times \mathbf {v} =\mathbf {w}$
  

Let $\mathbf {u=(2,3,4){\mbox{ and }}v=(-1,4,-3)}$ then
$\mathbf {u} \times \mathbf {v} =\left[{\begin{array}{ccc}i&j&k\\2&3&4\\-1&4&-3\end{array}}\right]=\mathbf {i} (3(-3)-4^{2})-\mathbf {j} (2(-3)-4(-1))+\mathbf {k} (2(4)-3(-1)$
$\mathbf {u} \times \mathbf {v} =-25\mathbf {i} +\mathbf {j} +11\mathbf {k}$

Lesson on Scalar and Vector Fields

Lesson on Solving Boundary Value Problems with Nonhomogeneous BCs

• Watch File:Temp.ogg.