Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Search
Home
Numbers Algebra
Separation of Variables
Separation of Variables is a special method to solve some Differential Equations
dy
dx
Method
Three Steps:
Step 1 Move all the y terms (including dy) to one side of the equation and all the x terms
(including dx) to the other side.
Step 2 Integrate one side with respect to y and the other side with respect to x. Don't
forget "+ C" (the constant of integration).
Step 3 Simplify
dy = ky dx
dy
y
= k dx
Step 2 Integrate both sides of the equation separately:
dy
y
k dx
ln(y) + C = k dx
ln(y) + C = kx + D
C is the constant of integration. And we use D for the other, as it is a different constant.
Step 3 Simplify
We can roll the two constants into one (a=DC):
ln(y) = kx + a
y = ekx + a
y = ekx ea
y = cekx
y = cekx
This is a general type of first order differential equation which turns up in all sorts of
unexpected places in real world examples.
We used y and x, but the same method works for other variable names, like this:
Example: Rabbits!
The more rabbits you have the more baby rabbits you will get.
Then those rabbits grow up and have babies too! The population
will grow faster and faster.
The important parts of this are:
the population N at any time t
the growth rate r
the population's rate of change
dN
dt
The rate of change at any time equals the growth rate times the population:
dN
= rN
dt
But hey! This is the same as the equation we just solved! It just has different letters:
N instead of
y
t instead of x
r instead of k
So we can jump to a solution:
N = ce rt
Exponential Growth
There are other equations that follow this pattern such as continuous compound interest .
More Examples
OK, on to some different examples of separating the variables:
1
y
Step 1 Separate the variables by moving all the y terms to one side of the equation and all
the x terms to the other side.
Multiply both sides by dx:
dy = (1/y) dx
y dy = dx
y dy = dx
(y2)/2 = x + C
We integrated both sides in the one line, and used just one constant of integration C. This
saves time, and is perfectly OK as we could have +D on one, +E on the other and just say
that C = ED.
Step 3 Simplify
y2 = 2(x + C)
y = (2(x + C))
Note: This is not the same as y = (2x) + C, because the C was addedbefore we took the
square root. This happens a lot with differential equations. We cannot just add the C at the
end of the process. It is added when doing the integration.
We have solved it:
y = (2(x + C))
A harder example:
2xy
1 + x2
dy =
2x
1 + x2
dx
y dy
2x
1 + x2
dx
The left side is a simple logarithm, the right side can be integrated using substitution:
Let u = 1 + x2 , so du = 2x dx
Integrate:
Then we make C = ln(k):
So we can get this:
Now put u = 1 + x2 back
again:
Step 3 Simplify
y dy
u du
ln(y) = ln(u) + C
ln(y) = ln(u) + ln(k)
y = uk
y = k(1 + x 2)
y = k(1 + x 2)
= rN
Well, that growth can't go on forever as they will soon run out of available food.
A guy called Verhulst included k (the maximum population the food can support) to get:
dN
dt
= rN(1-N/k)
dN = rN(1N/k) dt
1
N(1N/k)
dN = r dt
Step 2 Integrate
N(1N/k) dN
r dt
Hmmm... the left side looks hard to integrate. In fact it can be done, with a little trick.
N(1N/k)
k
N(kN)
N+kN
N(kN)
N
kN
N(kN) + N(kN)
kN
1
N
kN dN + N dN
Integrate:
r dt
ln(kN) + ln(N) = rt + C
Done!
(Why did that become minus ln(kN)? Because we are integrating with respect to N.)
Step 3 Simplify
Negative of all terms:
ln(kN) ln(N) = rt C
ln((kN)/N) = rt C
Combine ln():
(kN)/N = e rtC
(kN)/N = e rt eC
(kN)/N = Ae rt
We are getting close! Just a little more algebra to get N on its own:
Separate the fraction
terms:
(k/N)1 = Ae rt
k/N = 1 + Aert
1/N = (1 + Ae rt)/k
Divide both by k:
N = k/(1 + Ae rt)
N=
k
1 + Ae rt
40
1 + 5e 2t
Differential Equation
Calculus Index