Saturday, October 02, 2010

Math woes

So I had an exam yesterday in Differential equations. My biggest difficulty, it seems, now that I think I remember calculus, is knowing what I just have to leave alone. I had a problem that started well enough, y' = e^(x^2/2)(x+xy)/y. This solves pretty easily to y - log(y+1) = e^(x^2) + C. I wish I hadn't believed it would be a good idea to try to solve for y. Although wolfram suggests the answer lies in something called a lambert product-log function, it's a horrible solution, and can't be expected to pop into the head of an undergraduate math student (esp. not before complex analysis). So the good news is that I got all the parts on the page. The bad news is I didn't put them all next to each other, circle, and move on. The other 5 problems were either really easy or I did them all wrong.

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