Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems 9th Edition

Published by Wiley
ISBN 10: 0-47038-334-8
ISBN 13: 978-0-47038-334-6

Chapter 3 - Second Order Linear Equations - 3.3 Complex Roots of the Characteristic Equation - Problems - Page 165: 35

Answer

$$ t^{2} y^{\prime \prime}+t y^{\prime}+y=0 , \quad t > 0 $$ The general solution of the given equation $$ y(t) = c_{1} \cos ( \ln t)+c_{2} \sin ( \ln t) $$ where $ c_{1} $and $c_{2}$ are arbitrary constants.

Work Step by Step

$$ t^{2} y^{\prime \prime}+t y^{\prime}+y=0 , \quad t > 0 \quad (1). $$ Let $ x = \ln t$ . Then we have $$ \frac{d y}{d t}=\frac{d y}{d x} \frac{d x}{d t}=\frac{1}{t} \frac{d y}{d x} $$ $$ \frac{d^{2} y}{d t^{2}}=\frac{d}{d t}\left(\frac{1}{t} \frac{d y}{d x}\right)=\frac{-1}{t^{2}} \frac{d y}{d x}+\frac{1}{t} \frac{d}{d t}\left(\frac{d y}{d x}\right)=\frac{1}{t^{2}}\left(-\frac{d y}{d x}+\frac{d^{2} y}{d x^{2}}\right) $$ So if we use $x$ instead of $t$ as the variable, the equation (with unknown $y $ and variable $ x$) reads $$ \frac{d^{2} y}{d x^{2}}+ y=0, \quad (2) $$ We assume that $ y = e^{rx}$, and it then follows that $r$ must be a root of the characteristic equation $$ r^{2}+1=0, $$ so its roots are $$r_{1}=i ,\quad r_{2}= -i .$$ Therefore two solutions of Eq. (2) are $$ y_{1}(x) = e^{i x}=(\cos x + i \sin x) $$ and $$ y_{2}(x) = e^{-ix }=(\cos x - i \sin x) $$ Thus the general solution of the differential equation (2) is $$ y(x) = c_{1} \cos x+c_{2} \sin x $$ where $ c_{1} $and $c_{2}$ are arbitrary constants. Back to t: $$ y(t) = c_{1} \cos ( \ln t)+c_{2} \sin ( \ln t) $$
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