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For differentiable functions, the symmetric difference quotient does provide a better numerical approximation of the derivative than the usual difference quotient. [3] The symmetric derivative at a given point equals the arithmetic mean of the left and right derivatives at that point, if the latter two both exist. [1] [2]: 6
Ordinary differential equations occur in many scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, biology, and economics. [1] In addition, some methods in numerical partial differential equations convert the partial differential equation into an ordinary differential equation, which must then be solved.
Symplectic integrators are designed for the numerical solution of Hamilton's equations, which read ˙ = ˙ =, where denotes the position coordinates, the momentum coordinates, and is the Hamiltonian. The set of position and momentum coordinates ( q , p ) {\displaystyle (q,p)} are called canonical coordinates .
Lie's group theory of differential equations has been certified, namely: (1) that it unifies the many ad hoc methods known for solving differential equations, and (2) that it provides powerful new ways to find solutions. The theory has applications to both ordinary and partial differential equations. [26]
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 (+) + (() +).
Numerov's method (also called Cowell's method) is a numerical method to solve ordinary differential equations of second order in which the first-order term does not appear. It is a fourth-order linear multistep method. The method is implicit, but can be made explicit if the differential equation is linear.
If one can evaluate the two integrals, one can find a solution to the differential equation. Observe that this process effectively allows us to treat the derivative as a fraction which can be separated. This allows us to solve separable differential equations more conveniently, as demonstrated in the example below.
The symmetry may be broken if the function fails to have differentiable partial derivatives, which is possible if Clairaut's theorem is not satisfied (the second partial derivatives are not continuous). The function f(x, y), as shown in equation , does not have symmetric second derivatives at its origin.