Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Solutions to a slope field are functions drawn as solid curves. A slope field shows the slope of a differential equation at certain vertical and horizontal intervals on the x-y plane, and can be used to determine the approximate tangent slope at a point on a curve, where the curve is some solution to the differential equation.
Fig. 1: Isoclines (blue), slope field (black), and some solution curves (red) of y' = xy. The solution curves are y = C e x 2 / 2 {\displaystyle y=Ce^{x^{2}/2}} . Given a family of curves , assumed to be differentiable , an isocline for that family is formed by the set of points at which some member of the family attains a given slope .
There is no analogous method for solving third- or higher-order autonomous equations. Such equations can only be solved exactly if they happen to have some other simplifying property, for instance linearity or dependence of the right side of the equation on the dependent variable only [ 4 ] [ 5 ] (i.e., not its derivatives).
In applied mathematics, in particular the context of nonlinear system analysis, a phase plane is a visual display of certain characteristics of certain kinds of differential equations; a coordinate plane with axes being the values of the two state variables, say (x, y), or (q, p) etc. (any pair of variables).
By doing the above step, we have found the slope of the line that is tangent to the solution curve at the point (,). Recall that the slope is defined as the change in y {\displaystyle y} divided by the change in t {\displaystyle t} , or Δ y Δ t {\textstyle {\frac {\Delta y}{\Delta t}}} .
In mathematics, the method of characteristics is a technique for solving partial differential equations.Typically, it applies to first-order equations, though in general characteristic curves can also be found for hyperbolic and parabolic partial differential equation.
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 (+) + (() +).
This equation says that the vector tangent to the curve at any point x(t) along the curve is precisely the vector F(x(t)), and so the curve x(t) is tangent at each point to the vector field F. If a given vector field is Lipschitz continuous, then the Picard–Lindelöf theorem implies that there exists a unique flow for small time.