PH 542 - Nonlinear Dynamics, Autumn 2016-17

Instructor Name Amitabha Nandi

Course Type Honours/Elective (Core for DD)

Course overview

One Dimensional Flow, Bifurcations, Phase diagrams, Limit Cycles, Lorenz Equations, Chaotic Attractors, One Dimensional Maps, introduction to renormalization group theory

Prerequisites

No formal or informal prerequisites

Credit distribution

There was one quiz (15%), a midsem (30%) and an endsem (40%). Apart from that, there was a project, worth 15% of the grade. The topic could either be chosen by the student (after approval from the prof), or from a pool of suggested topics.

Feedback on Lectures

The lectures were extremely interesting, it really felt like the professor was giving his best. The lectures were blackboard based, so fast notetaking soon became the norm.

Feedback on tutorials, assignments and exams

The assignments were fairly tricky, towards the end. All the assignments were ungraded. Class notes (no printed material) was allowed in all the exams.

Relevant References

1. Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos - Steven Strogatz [main reference]
2. Chaos - Alligood, Sauer and Yorke
3. Chaos in Dynamical Systems - Edward Ott

Online References

MIT OCW, Strogatz's Youtube Lectures

Pro-tips

It's a really fun course, keep your mind open and be sure you understand what is being taught, by complementing the lectures with self-study, especially in the second half of the course.

Personal comments

The best part about the course was definitely the professor, Prof Nandi is very lively and really really nice. Make sure you ask doubts in class, because the Prof actually encourages that.

Respondent Vedant Basu

Note: This is a review to help you make a more informed choice about how to study for this course and/or choosing this course. While we've tried to keep it objective and complete, one must keep in mind that students have varying interests, methods of study, and the course itself changes from year to year.