ENGR 091 Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos

Class meeting times: MW 11:45 AM — 1:00 PM in Singer 221
Office Hours: W 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Instructor: Emad Masroor

Official course website

Spring 2025 • E91 • Swarthmore College • MW 11:45 to 1:00 Singer 221

Welcome to the website for E91: Nonlinear Dynamics & Chaos!

General Information

Hyperlinks to lectures and homework assignments will be posted here. The schedule after spring break is tentative.

Class	Date	Topic	Readings	Due
1.1	Wed, Jan 22	Introduction & Review
2.1	Mon, Jan 27	Three approaches to dynamics	2.0, 2.1, 4.0, 4.1
2.2	Wed, Jan 29	Potentials & Linear Stability	2.4, 2.7	HW 1 [solutions]
3.1	Mon, Feb 3	Bifurcations	3.1 to 3.4
3.2 [In-class exercise]	Wed, Feb 5	Bifurcations	3.4, 3.5 (dimensional analysis and scaling), 3.7	HW 2 [solutions]
4.1 [In-class exercise]	Mon, Feb 10	Linear systems	Ch. 5
4.2	Wed, Feb 12	Linear systems	Ch. 5.0, 5.1, 5.2	HW 3 [solutions]
5.1	Mon, Feb 17	Nonlinear phase plane	Ch. 5.3
5.2	Wed, Feb 19	Linearization about fixed pts	Ch. 6.1, 6.2, 6.3	HW 4 [solutions]
6.1	Mon, Feb 24	Hyperbolic fixed pts; popln. dyn.	Ch. 6.3, 6.4
6.2	Wed, Feb 26	Nonlinear phase plane; conservative systems	Ch. 6.4-6.8	~~HW 5~~
7.1	Mon, Mar 3	Conservative systems; index	Ch. 8
7.2 [In-class exercise]	Wed, Mar 5	Limit Cycles	Ch. 8	HW 5 due F
8.1 [Video recording]	Mon, Mar 17	Limit Cycles; Poincare-Bendixson Thm.
8.2	Wed, Mar 19	Midterm
9.1 [In-class exercise]	Mon, Mar 24	Bifurcations
9.2 [In-class exercise]	Wed, Mar 26
10.1	Mon, Mar 31
10.2	Wed, Apr 2			HW 6
11.1	Mon, Apr 7
11.2	Wed, Apr 9			HW 7
12.1	Mon, Apr 14
12.2	Wed, Apr 16			HW 8
13.1	Mon, Apr 21
13.2	Wed, Apr 23			HW 9
14.1	Mon, Apr 28
14.2	Wed, Apr 30			HW 10
13.2	Wed, Apr 23
14.1	Mon, Apr 28
14.2	Wed, Apr 30

Lab	Topic	Open	Report Due	Location
Lab 1	Linear vs Nonlinear Dynamics	Feb 10	Feb 24	Singer 120
Lab 2	The Nonlinear Phase Plane	Mar 02	Mar TBD	Singer 246
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