Introduction

Abstract

Various delay differential equations, primarily taken from the biological sciences literature, are presented, along with necessary background from the application area, in order to motivate our study of delay differential equations. These range from models in population biology, physiology, epidemiology, economics,and neural networks, to control of mechanical systems. Some of these are treated in detail later in the text; others can serve as potential student projects. The reader should feel free to pick and choose to which of these to devote attention. Following this, some terminology is introduced and the reader is pointed to various computer software designed specifically for delay differential equations.