MATH*2170: Differential Equations I

Assignment 1
due Thursday, January 22 (in class)
35 marks available
Assignments are designed to be trickier than questions you would see on a test or exam, so
I have three suggestions for you as you proceed.
1. Dont start by attempting these questions. I strongly recommend that you start by trying
the practice problems, and reviewing the lecture and lab problems, since they have been carefully
chosen to help you master the topic before you attempt these problems!
2. You are encouraged to discuss these problems with your classmates, but you MUST write
up your solutions independently and they must be entirely your own work.
3. Ask for help!

1. (6 marks) In this question, we will work with the family of ellipses

y2
x2
+
2 = 1. For various values of k 6= 0, we obtain various ellipses
2
(k)
( k2 )
that are all twice as wide in the x-direction. We often refer to such a set
of curves as a one-parameter family of curves since they depend
only on k. If you rearrange the equation, you obtain x2 + 4y 2 = k 2 ,
which is the form of the equation we will be working with in this
question. The orthogonal trajectories of this family of curves is
another family of curves whose members always intersect each of the
ellipses at right-angles. In this question, we will find the orthogonal
trajectories of our family of ellipses.
(a) Take the derivative

dy
dx

of our ellipse equation implicitly.

dy
(b) The result dx
is the slope of the tangent line to each ellipse at a
given coordinate (x, y). If the orthogonal trajectories are always
dy
meeting our ellipses at 90 degrees, what must dx
equal for the
orthogonal trajectories?

(c) You answer for the last part of the question is a separable differential equation! Solve the differential equation and identify the
orthogonal trajectories of our ellipses.
(d) Draw four members of each family together on one graph and show
that the two families of curves do indeed intersect at right-angles.
1

2. (5 marks) The logistic initial value problem is given by

y 0 = y(a by),

y(0) = y0 ,

where a, b are positive non-zero constants. Show that the solution is

given by
a by0
a
,
where c =
.
y(t) = at
ce + b
y0
There are two methods for solving this equation. You may decide that
the obvious way of solving is not necessarily the easiest.
3. (4 marks) Use a substitution to solve the differential equation
x

p
dy
= y + x2 y 2 ,
dx

x>0

4. (4 marks) Use the substitution v = ln(xy) to solve the differential

equation
xy 0 = y ln(xy),
x>0
5. (3 marks) The velocity v of an object of mass m that is falling under
the influence of gravity can be modelled by the differential equation
m dv
dt = mg kv, where g is the acceleration due to gravity and k is a
positive constant. Draw a phase portrait of the differential equation
and describe all possible limiting behaviours of the object.
6. (5 marks) Sketch solutions of the differential equation
dy
= y(2 y)(4 y)
dt
for a range of initial conditions. Include a full analysis of any concavity
changes in your solutions. Identify any equilibria as stable, unstable
or semi-stable.

7. (8 marks) For this question, you will need to use MATLAB, which
is available on any of the school computers. Download the following files: solution_plot_A1.m and dirfield.m from CourseLink.
Place them in the same folder. Load MATLAB and navigate to the
folder where you placed the two files. You will be working only with
solution_plot_A1.m. Open this file and play around with the code!
Ultimately, you will pick any ordinary differential equation you want,
plot the direction field and three different solutions on the same plot.
Adjust the plot dimensions in the code to make your plots and direction
field easy to see. The run the code, simply type solution_plot_A1
in the Command Window.
Once you have a nice plot, you will want to export it for printing. Click
on File, then Export Setup. An options box will open. Click on
export and a save box will open. Choose a folder to save to and change
the file format to either EPS file or Portable Document Format
and click Save. The figure has now been saved for you to either print
on campus, or e-mail to yourself to print from home.
On the final printout, please write the differential equation you chose,
and explain in your own words the meaning of the direction field.