A mathematical model of a physical system provides the engineer with the insight and intuitive understanding required to make efficient system design changes or other modifications.

"The methods are presented with many explanatory examples plus additional (unsolved) practice problems. As such, it is of great value for all mathematics instructors who teach university level courses for engineering students." Zentralblatt MATH A mathematical model of a physical system provides the engineer with the insight and intuitive understanding required to make efficient system design changes or other modifications. In this context, a simple formula is often worth a thousand numerical simulations, and connections between different control parameters can be immediately revealed that might otherwise take hours or weeks to deduce from a computational analysis. This book supplies the undergraduate engineer with the basic mathematical tools for developing and understanding such models, and is also suitable as a review for engineering graduate students. A firm grasp of the topics covered will also enable the working engineer (educated to bachelor's degree level) to understand, write and otherwise make sensible use of technical reports and papers.