Differential Equations on Octave
In this lesson, I will explain how to calculate a differential equation on Octave through a practical example.
What do you need? To follow this lesson, you must have already installed Symbolic on Octave.
Create the symbol of the function f(x) using the command syms.
syms y(x)
Now, write the differential equation y''(x)+y'(x)=0 in the variable eqz.
To write the derivatives, use the differentiation function diff()
eqz = diff(y,x,2) + diff(y,x,1) == 0
In the above command, the second derivative y''(x) is obtained with diff(y,x,2), while the first derivative y'(x) is obtained with diff(y,x,1).
To solve the differential equation, use the dsolve() function.
dsolve(eqz)
This function calculates and displays the general solution of the differential equation.
y(x) = c1 + c2 e-x
With the diff() function in Octave, you can calculate the general solution of any homogeneous or non-homogeneous differential equation of any order.