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Separable Differential Equations

This document discusses separable differential equations. It defines differential equations and separable differential equations. It provides examples of solving separable differential equations by separating the variables, integrating both sides, and solving for the variable of interest. It also provides examples of using initial conditions to find particular solutions.

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Leopold Laset
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857 views7 pages

Separable Differential Equations

This document discusses separable differential equations. It defines differential equations and separable differential equations. It provides examples of solving separable differential equations by separating the variables, integrating both sides, and solving for the variable of interest. It also provides examples of using initial conditions to find particular solutions.

Uploaded by

Leopold Laset
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Separable Differential Equations

Introduction
Imagine you are behind a microscope in a biology laboratory and you are trying to count the growing number of
bacteria in a petri dish. You observe that at any point in time, one-fourth of the population is reproduced. You may
eventually give up on counting because the bacteria are multiplying very fast, but you can use your calculus skills to
find the population of bacteria at any given time. Let y denote the population at any time t. According to your
observation, the change in the population at any time is 1/4 y. Since the derivative quantifies change, the above
observation can be expressed mathematically as

This is an example of a differential equation, and our objective is to recover the population y from the above
equation using integration.

TIP Lesson Proper


A differential equation (DE) is an equation that involves x, y and the derivatives of y. The following are examples of
differential equations:

The order of a differential equation pertains to the highest order of the derivative that appears in the differential
equation.

The first two examples above are first-order DEs because they involve only the first derivative, while the last
example is a second-order DE because y^n appears in the equation.

A solution to a differential equation is a function y = f(x) or a relation f(x, y) = 0 that satisfies the equation.
For example, y = x^2 + 5x + 1 is a solution to dy/dx = 2x + 5 since

The relation x^2 + y^2 = 1 is a solution to dy/dx = ?x/y because if we differentiate the relation implicitly, we get

Solving a differential equation means finding all possible solutions to the DE.

A differential equation is said to be separable if it can be expressed as

f(x) dx = g(y) dy,

where f and g are functions of x and y, respectively. Observe that we have separated the variables in the sense that
the left-hand side only involves x while the right-hand side is purely in terms of y.

If it is possible to separate the variables, then we can find the solution of the differential equation by simply
integrating:

and applying appropriate techniques of integration. Note that the left-hand side yields a function of x, say F(x)+C1,
while the right-hand side yields a function of y, say G(y)+C2. We thus obtain

F(x) = G(y) + C (Here, C = C2 - C1)

which we can then express into a solution of the form y = H(x) + C, if possible.

We will now look at some examples of how to solve separable differential equations.

EXAMPLE 1: Solve the differential equation


Solution. Observe that y = 0 is a solution to the differential equation. Suppose that y 6 =/= 0. We divide both sides of
the equation by y to separate the variables:

Integrating the left-hand side with respect to y and integrating the right-hand side with respect to t yield

Taking the exponential of both sides, we obtain

Therefore, y = Ae&^1/4t, where A = e^C is any positive constant. Therefore, along with the solution y = 0 that we
have found at the start, the solution to the given differential equation is y = Ae^1/4t where A is any real number.

EXAMPLE 2: Solve the differential equation 2ydx ? 3x dy = 0.

Solution. If y = 0, then dy/dx = 0 which means that the function y = 0 is a solution to the differential equation 2y ?
3xdy/dx = 0. Assume that y 6= 0. Separating the variables, we get

2y dx = 3x dy

2/xdx = 3/y dy.

Integrating both sides, we obtain

Therefore, the solutions are y = 3? Ax^2/3 where A = e^?C is any positive constant. Along with the trivial solution y
= 0, the set of solutions to the differential equation is y = Bx^2/3 where B is any real number. Note: The absolute
value bars are dropped since x^2 is already nonnegative.

EXAMPLE 3: Solve the equation xy^3dx + e^x^2 dy = 0.

Solution. First, we separate the variables. We have

Integrating both sides of the equation with respect to their variables, we have
Meanwhile, if u = ?x2, then du = ?2xdx so that ?du/2 = xdx. Hence,

Therefore,

If we solve for y in terms of x, we get y = (A?e^?x^2)^?1/2, where A = 2C is any constant.

EXAMPLE 4: Solve the equation 3(y + 2) dx ? xy dy = 0.

Solution. Separating the variables of the differential equation gives us

Now that we have separated the variables, we now integrate the


equation term by term:
Note
that in the previous examples, a constant of integration is always present. If there are initial conditions, or if we know
that the solution passes through a point, we can solve this constant and get a particular solution to the differential
equation.

EXAMPLE 5: Find the particular solutions of the following given their corresponding initial conditions:

(a) dy/dt = 1/4 y when y = 100 and t = 0

(b) 2ydx ? 3x dy = 0 when x = 1 and y = 1

(c) xy^3 dx + ex^2dy = 0 when x = 0 and y = 1

(d) 3(y + 2) dx ? xy dy = 0 when x = 1 and y = ?1

Solution. We will use the general solutions from the previous examples.

(a) The solution to Example 1 is y = Ae^1/4t. Using the


conditions y = 100 and t = 0, we get 100 = Ae^0. Hence, A = 100
and therefore the particular solution is y = 100e^1/4 t.

(b) The solution to Example 2 is y = Bx^2/3. Substituting (x, y) =


(1, 1) gives 1 = B 1^2/3 = B. Hence, the particular solution is y =
3? x^2.

(c) From the Example 3, the general solution is y = 1/? A ? e^?


x^2. Substituting (x, y) = (1, 0) yields 1 = 1/? A ? 1. Since the
square root of a real number is never negative, ? A ?1 = +1 and
so A = 2. Finally, the particular solution is y = 1/? 2 ? e^?x^2.

(d) From Example 4, the general solution is 3 ln|x| = y?2 ln|y+2|


+C. Substituting the given values (x, y) = (1,?1), we obtain 3 ln|1|
= ?1?2 ln|?1+2|+C. Simplifying this gives C = 1. Hence, the
particular solution is the relation 3 ln|x| = y?2 ln|y+2|+1.
TIP

Exercises 1 mins
0 REMIXES

1. Determine whether each of the following differential equations is separable or not, if it is separable, rewrite the
equation in the form g(y) dy = f(x) dx.
2. Find the general solution of the following differential equations.

3. Solve the following initial-value problems.

4. Find all constant solutions, if possible, to each of the following differential equations.
5. Find all solutions to the differential equation dy/dx = ?x/(y ? 3) and a particular solution satisfying y(0) = 1.

6. Find the particular solution of the differential equation d^2y/dx^2 = ?3/x^4 determine by the initial
conditions y =1/2 and dy/dx = ?1 when x = 1.
TIP

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