Ordinary differential equation

parabolic projectile motion showing velocity vector
The trajectory of a projectile launched from a cannon follows a curve determined by an ordinary differential equation that is derived from Newton's second law.

In mathematics, an ordinary differential equation (ODE) is a differential equation (DE) dependent on only a single independent variable. As with any other DE, its unknown(s) consists of one (or more) function(s) and involves the derivatives of those functions. The term "ordinary" is used in contrast with partial differential equations (PDEs) which may be with respect to more than one independent variable, and, less commonly, in contrast with stochastic differential equations (SDEs) where the modeled process is random.

This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.