Second-OrderLinearDifferentialEquations.pdfVIP

Second-Order Linear Differential Equations A second-order linear differential equation has the form 2 d y dy 1 Px 2 Qx Rxy Gx dx dx where P , Q, R, and G are continuous functions. We saw in Section 7.1 that equations of this type arise in the study of the motion of a spring. In Additional Topics: Applications of Second-Order Differential Equations we will further pursue this application as well as the application to electric circuits. In this section we study the case where Gx 0 , for all x , in Equation 1. Such equa- tions are called homogeneous linear equations. Thus, the form of a second-order linear homogeneous differential equation is d 2 y dy 2 Px 2 Qx Rxy 0 dx dx If Gx 0 for some x , Equation 1 is nonhomogeneous and is discussed in Additional Topics: Nonhomogeneous Linear Equations. Two basic facts enable us to solve homogeneous linear equations. The first of these says that if we know two solutions y 1 and y2 of such an equation, th