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Sunday, December 29, 2013

Solving Equations - Homogeneous Functions, 2

Category: Differential Equations, Integral Calculus

"Published in Newark, California, USA"

Find the general solution for


Solution: 

Consider the given equation above


Did you notice that the given equation cannot be solved by separation of variables? The first term is a combination of x and y in the group and there's no way that we can separate x and y. 

This type of differential equation is a homogeneous function. Let's consider this procedure in solving the given equation as follows


Let


so that


Substitute the values of y and dy to the given equation, we have








The resulting equation can now be separated by separation of variables as follows



Integrate on both sides of the equation, we have




But



Hence, the above equation becomes






Therefore, the general solution is