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The finite difference method relies on discretizing a function on a grid. To use a finite difference method to approximate the solution to a problem, one must first discretize the problem's domain. This is usually done by dividing the domain into a uniform grid (see image).
In an analogous way, one can obtain finite difference approximations to higher order derivatives and differential operators. For example, by using the above central difference formula for f ′(x + h / 2 ) and f ′(x − h / 2 ) and applying a central difference formula for the derivative of f ′ at x, we obtain the central difference approximation of the second derivative of f:
The classical finite-difference approximations for numerical differentiation are ill-conditioned. However, if f {\displaystyle f} is a holomorphic function , real-valued on the real line, which can be evaluated at points in the complex plane near x {\displaystyle x} , then there are stable methods.
Backward finite difference [ edit ] To get the coefficients of the backward approximations from those of the forward ones, give all odd derivatives listed in the table in the previous section the opposite sign, whereas for even derivatives the signs stay the same.
Consider a numerical approximation , where is a parameter characterizing the approximation, such as the step size in a finite difference scheme or the diameter of the cells in a finite element method.
Figure 1.Comparison of different schemes. In applied mathematics, the central differencing scheme is a finite difference method that optimizes the approximation for the differential operator in the central node of the considered patch and provides numerical solutions to differential equations. [1]
The compact finite difference formulation, or Hermitian formulation, is a numerical method to compute finite difference approximations.
A finite difference (FD) model of a differential equation (DE) can be formed by simply replacing the derivatives with FD approximations. But this is a naive "translation." If we literally translate from English to Japanese by making a one-to-one correspondence between words, the original meaning is often lost.