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A finite difference is a mathematical expression of the form f (x + b) − f (x + a).If a finite difference is divided by b − a, one gets a difference quotient.The approximation of derivatives by finite differences plays a central role in finite difference methods for the numerical solution of differential equations, especially boundary value problems.
For example, consider the ordinary differential equation ′ = + The Euler method for solving this equation uses the finite difference quotient (+) ′ to approximate the differential equation by first substituting it for u'(x) then applying a little algebra (multiplying both sides by h, and then adding u(x) to both sides) to get (+) + (() +).
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.
Because of this, different methods need to be used to solve BVPs. For example, the shooting method (and its variants) or global methods like finite differences, [3] Galerkin methods, [4] or collocation methods are appropriate for that class of problems. The Picard–Lindelöf theorem states that there is a unique solution, provided f is ...
An illustration of the five-point stencil in one and two dimensions (top, and bottom, respectively). In numerical analysis, given a square grid in one or two dimensions, the five-point stencil of a point in the grid is a stencil made up of the point itself together with its four "neighbors".
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.
Finite differences are composed from differences in a sequence of values, or the values of a function sampled at discrete points. Finite differences are used both in interpolation and numerical analysis, and also play an important role in combinatorics and analytic number theory. The prototypical finite difference equation is the Newton series.