This book is an outgrowth of a course developed at Stanford University over
the past five years. It is suitable as a self-contained textbook for second-level
undergraduates or for first-level graduate students in almost every field that
employs quantitative methods. As prerequisites, it is assumed that the student
may have had a first course in differential equations and a first course in linear
algebra or matrix analysis. These two subjects, however, are reviewed in
Chapters 2 and 3, insofar as they are required for later developments.
