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For example, the second-order equation y′′ = −y can be rewritten as two first-order equations: y′ = z and z′ = −y. In this section, we describe numerical methods for IVPs, and remark that boundary value problems (BVPs) require a different set of tools.
An example of modeling a real-world problem using differential equations is the determination of the velocity of a ball falling through the air, considering only gravity and air resistance. The ball's acceleration towards the ground is the acceleration due to gravity minus the deceleration due to air resistance.
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".
This specific example is the Schrödinger equation for a particle in a potential (), but the structure is more general. In many practical partial differential equations, one has a term that involves derivatives (such as a kinetic energy contribution), and a multiplication with a function (for example, a potential).
For the equation and initial value problem: ′ = (,), = if and / are continuous in a closed rectangle = [, +] [, +] in the plane, where and are real (symbolically: ,) and denotes the Cartesian product, square brackets denote closed intervals, then there is an interval = [, +] [, +] for some where the solution to the above equation and initial ...
The classical finite-difference approximations for numerical differentiation are ill-conditioned. However, if is a holomorphic function, real-valued on the real line, which can be evaluated at points in the complex plane near , then there are stable methods.
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). This means that finite-difference methods produce sets of discrete numerical approximations to the derivative, often in a "time-stepping" manner.
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: