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In mathematics, an ordinary differential equation (ODE) is a differential equation (DE) dependent on only a single independent variable.As with any other DE, its unknown(s) consists of one (or more) function(s) and involves the derivatives of those functions. [1]
In mathematics, Painlevé transcendents are solutions to certain nonlinear second-order ordinary differential equations in the complex plane with the Painlevé property (the only movable singularities are poles), but which are not generally solvable in terms of elementary functions.
First-order means that only the first derivative of y appears in the equation, and higher derivatives are absent. Without loss of generality to higher-order systems, we restrict ourselves to first-order differential equations, because a higher-order ODE can be converted into a larger system of first-order equations by introducing extra variables.
Reduction of order (or d’Alembert reduction) is a technique in mathematics for solving second-order linear ordinary differential equations. It is employed when one solution y 1 ( x ) {\displaystyle y_{1}(x)} is known and a second linearly independent solution y 2 ( x ) {\displaystyle y_{2}(x)} is desired.
As a second-order differential operator, the Laplace operator maps C k functions to C k−2 functions for k ≥ 2.It is a linear operator Δ : C k (R n) → C k−2 (R n), or more generally, an operator Δ : C k (Ω) → C k−2 (Ω) for any open set Ω ⊆ R n.
Differential equations that describe natural phenomena almost always have only first and second order derivatives in them, but there are some exceptions, such as the thin-film equation, which is a fourth order partial differential equation.
The second-order autonomous equation = (, ′) is more difficult, but it can be solved [2] by introducing the new variable = and expressing the second derivative of via the chain rule as = = = so that the original equation becomes = (,) which is a first order equation containing no reference to the independent variable .
For this reason, the Euler method is said to be a first-order method, while the midpoint method is second order. We can extrapolate from the above table that the step size needed to get an answer that is correct to three decimal places is approximately 0.00001, meaning that we need 400,000 steps.