Role of Mathematics in Optics: To find the spectrum of colours

ATM Security
Increasing use of electronic communications in financial and other applications has increased the need for encryption to ensure privacy The most widely used encryption system in the world is RSA, developed in 1976 by three mathematicians, Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman.

Applications of Differential Equations

Application 1 : Exponential Growth - Population Let P(t) be a quantity that increases with time t and the rate of increase is proportional to the same quantity P as follows dP/d t = k P, where dp/dt is the first derivative of P, k > 0 and t is the time.

The solution to the above first order differential equation is given by

P(t) = A ekt, where A is a constant not equal to 0. If P = P0 at t = 0, then P0 = A e0 which gives A = P0 The final form of the solution is given by P(t) = P0 ekt Assuming P0 is positive and since k is positive, P(t) is an increasing exponential. d P / d t = k P is also called an exponential growth model.

Application 1 : Falling Object

An object is dropped from a height at time t = 0. If h(t) is the height of the object at time t, a(t) the acceleration and v(t) the velocity. The relationships between a, v and h are as follows:

a(t) = dv/dt , v(t) = dh/dt.

For a falling object, a(t) is constant and is equal to g = -9.8 m/s. Combining the above differential equations, we can easily deduce the following equation d2h/dt2 = g Integrate both sides of the above equation to obtain dh/dt = g t + v0 Integrate one more time to obtain h(t) = (1/2) g t + v0 t + h0 The above equation describes the height of a falling object, from an initial height h0 at an initial velocity v0, as a function of time.

Matrices applied to model electric circuits

There are two closed loops in the given circuit. loop 1: e1, R1 and R3 and loop 2: e2, R2 and R3. e1 and e2 are sources of voltages. R1, R2 and R3 are resistors. i1 is the current flowing across R1 and i2 is the current flowing across R2. We now apply Kichhoff's law to each loop.

loop 1: e1 = R1 i1 + R3 (i1 - i2)

loop 2: e2 = R2 i2 + R3 (i2 - i1) Question: If e1, e2, R1, R2 and R3 are known, how do you calculate i1 and i2? This circuit is simple and involves only two equations. However electric cicuits can be much more complicated that the one above and matrices are suitable to answer the above question. Let us group like terms in the above system of equations e1 = i1 (R1 + R3) - i2 R3 e2 = - i1 R3 + i2(R2 + R3)

and then write it in matrix form as given in equation 1

The equation 1 is a matrix equation that may be solved using any known method to solve systems of equations. Let e, R and i be matrices given by equation 2. The solution to the matrix equation is given by equation 3 where R -1 is the inverse matrix of R and is given by equation 4.