Nonlinear ODE initial value problem A student came to me with a problem I couldn't solve. It's t

Travis Caldwell

Travis Caldwell

Answered question

2022-04-23

Nonlinear ODE initial value problem
A student came to me with a problem I couldn't solve. It's the beginning of the semester in his Intro DiffEq class, and so the solution shouldn't be too difficult. But it completely stumped me, and now I can't let it go! Here it is:
Problem. Find all solutions to the IVP:
(dydx)24x2=x4y2,;;;;y(0)=0.
I thought about maybe just doing a sort of guess-and-check method, but the existence/uniqueness theorem doesn't apply, so I'm not sure that would help even if I could find a single solution, which I cannot in any case.

Answer & Explanation

j3jell5

j3jell5

Beginner2022-04-24Added 17 answers

Step 1
Keep in mind that, by the statement of the equation, y(x)24x2 and x2y(x)2. The former restriction is equivalent to y(x)2x or y(x)2x. The latter restriction is equivalent to -x2y(x)x2. Therefore,
y(x)=±x4+4x2y(x)2
with the restrictions already specified. These are two equations of the form
y(x)=f[x,y(x)],
where f:R2R. Notice that if y(x)=x2, then
Step 2
x4+4x2y(x)2=2|x|,
hence y(x)=x2 solves the former equation for x>0, and it solves the latter for x<0. Meanwhile, y(x)=x2 solves the former equation for x<0, and solves the latter for x>0. Thus, the former equation is solved by y(x)=x|x| on R and the latter is solved by y(x)=x|x| on R. With this in mind, you should try z(x)=|x|y(x), and work with this, to find other solutions.

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