Introduction to Symmetry Analysis

This text offers a broad, self-contained, introduction to the basic concepts of symmetry analysis and is intended primarily for first and second year graduate students in science, engineering and applied mathematics. Mathematica-based software for finding the Lie point symmetries and Lie-Bäcklund symmetries of differential equations is included on a CD along with more than forty sample notebooks illustrating applications ranging from simple, low order, ordinary differential equations to complex systems of partial differential equations. The software requires Mathematica 2.2 or higher. MathReader 4.0 is included to permit the user without access to Mathematica to read the sample notebooks and follow the procedure used to find symmetries.