An Introduction to Difference Equations

This book combines both analytic and geometric (topological) approaches to studying difference equations. It integrates both classical and modern treatment of the subject. The book has the most updated and comprehensive material in stability, z-transform, discrete control theory, and asymptotic theory. Yet the presentation is simple enough so that the book can be used for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in mathematics, engineering, science, and economics. Moreover, scientists and engineers who are interested in discrete mathematical models will find it useful as a reference. The book contains a large set of applications in a variety of disciplines including neural networks, feedback control, Markov chains, trade models, heat transfer, propagation of plants, etc. Each section of the book ends with an extensive and highly selected set of exercises.

The book integrates both classical and modern treatments of difference equations. It contains the most updated and comprehensive material, yet the presentation is simple enough for the book to be used by advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students. This third edition includes more proofs, more graphs, and more applications. The author has also updated the contents by adding a new chapter on Higher Order Scalar Difference Equations, along with recent results on local and global stability of one-dimensional maps, a new section on the various notions of asymptoticity of solutions, a detailed proof of Levin-May Theorem, and the latest results on the LPA flour-beetle model.

Saber Elaydi is Professor of Mathematics at Trinity University. He is also the author of Discrete Chaos (1999), and the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Difference Equations and Applications.

About the Second Edition:

The book is a valuable reference for anyone who models discrete systems. Dynamicists have the long-awaited discrete counterpart to standard textbooks such as Hirsch and Smale ('Differential Equations, Dynamical Systems, and Linear Algebra'). It is so well written and well designed, and the contents are so interesting to me, that I had a difficult time putting it down.

- Shandelle Henson, Journal of Difference Equations and Applications

Among the few introductory texts to difference equations this book is one of the very best ones. It has many features that the other texts don't have, e.g., stability theory, the Z-transform method (including a study of Volterra systems), and asymptotic behavior of solutions of difference equations (including Levinson's lemma) are studied extensively. It also contains very nice examples that primarily arise in applications in a variety of disciplines, including neural networks, feedback control, biology, Markov chains, economics, and heat transfer...

-Martin Bohner, University of Missouri, Rolla