Mathematics Department

Textbook Contents

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Separable Equations

Additional Examples

Solve the following initial value problem, $$\begin{align} \frac{dy}{dx} &= \exp(2x)(y^2 - 6y + 8)\\ y(-1) &= 3 \end{align}$$This is a separable equation. First we find the general solution following the paradigm.

  1. Separate the variables $$ \frac{dy}{y^2 - 6y + 8} = \exp(2x) dx $$
  2. Integrate both sides $$ (1/2)\log|y - 4| - (1/2)\log|y - 2| = (1/2)\exp(2x) + C $$
  3. Solve for y (if possible)

    We simplify the expression to obtain the general solution $$ \frac{y - 4}{y - 2} = k \exp(\exp(2x)) $$

  4. Check for singular solutions

    We divided by $y^2 - 6y + 8$ which is 0 when $y = 4$ or $y = 2.$ We can check these are both solutions. Now $y = 4$ is already in the general solution (when the constant is 0), but $y = 2$ is a singular solution.

Now we plug in the initial values $x = -1$ and $y = 3$ and solve for the arbitrary constant, which we compute to be $-\exp(-\exp(-2)).$ So the solution to the initial value problem is $$\frac{y - 4}{y - 2} = -\exp((\exp(2x)-\exp(-2))).$$

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