7.6 Exercises

Exercise 7.1 Determine the value of \(C\) when \(I(0)=10\) for the two equations:

\[\begin{equation} \begin{split} I_{1}(t) = 1000 + Ce^{-.03t} \\ I_{2}(t) = 1000 + C e^{-0.015 t^{2}} \end{split} \end{equation}\]

 

Exercise 7.2 Verify that \(I_{2}(t) = N + C e^{-0.5 k t^{2}}\) is the solution to the differential equation \(\displaystyle \frac{dI}{dt} = kt (N-I)\). Plot your dolution for various values of \(k\) ranging from .001 to .1. What effect does \(k\) have on the solution?

 

Exercise 7.3 A chemical reaction \(2A \rightarrow C + D\) can be modeled with the following differential equation (Scholz and Scholz 2014):

\[\begin{equation} \frac{dA}{dt} = -2 k A^{2} \end{equation}\]

Apply the method of separation of variables to determine a general solution for this differential equation.

 

Exercise 7.4 Which of the following differential equations be solved via separation of variables?

  1. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = x \cdot (y^{2}+2)\)
  2. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = x^{2} + xy\)
  3. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = e^{x+y}\)
  4. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = y \cdot \cos(2+x)\)
  5. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = \ln x + \ln y\)
Once you have identified which ones can be solved via separation of variables, apply that technique to solve each differential equation.

 

Exercise 7.5 Solve the following differential equations by separation of variables:

  1. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = \frac{y^{3}}{x}\)
  2. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = 1+y^{2}\)
  3. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = 8-y\)

 

Exercise 7.6 Consider the following differential equation \(\displaystyle \frac{dP}{dt} = - \delta P\), \(P(0)=P_{0}\), where \(\delta\) is a constant parameter.

  1. Solve this equation using the method of separation of variables.
  2. Solve this euqation using an integrating factor.
  3. Your two solutions from the two methods should be the same - are they?

 

Exercise 7.7 Here we return to the problem of how animals consume food. A differential equation that relates a consumer’s nutrient content (denoted as \(y\)) to the nutrient content of food (denoted as \(x\)) is given by:

\[\begin{equation} \frac{dy}{dx} = \frac{1}{\theta} \frac{y}{x}, \end{equation}\]

where \(\theta \geq 1\) is a constant. Apply separation of variables to determine the general solution to this differential equation.

 

Exercise 7.8 Apply separation of variables to determine general solutions to the following systems of differential equations: \[\begin{equation} \begin{split} \frac{dx}{dt} &= x \\ \frac{dy}{dt} &= y \end{split} \end{equation}\] (This system is an example of an uncoupled system of equations.)

 

Exercise 7.9 A plant grows propritional to its current length \(L\). Assume this proportionality constant is \(\mu\), whose rate also decreases proportional to its current value. The system of equations that models this plant growth is the following: \[\begin{equation} \begin{split} \frac{dL}{dt} = \mu L \\ \frac{d\mu}{dt} = -k \mu \\ \mbox{($k$ is a constant parameter)} \end{split} \end{equation}\] Apply separation of variables to determine the general solutions to this system of equations.

 

Exercise 7.10 Use the method developed in this section determine the general solution to the following system of differential equations: \[\begin{equation} \begin{split} \frac{dx}{dt} &= x-y \\ \frac{dy}{dt} & = 2y \end{split} \end{equation}\]

 

Exercise 7.11 Apply the method of integrating factors to determine the solution to the differential equation \(\displaystyle \frac{dI}{dt} = (N-I) = kN - kI\), where \(k\) and \(N\) are parameters.

 

Exercise 7.12 For each of the following differential equations:

  • Determine equilibrium solutions for the differential equation.
  • Apply separation of variables to determine general solutions to the following differential equations:
  • Choose reasonable values of any parameters and plot the solution curve for an initial condition that you select.
  1. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = -\frac{x}{y}\)
  2. \(\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dx} = 8-y\)
  3. \(\displaystyle \frac{dW}{dt} = k (N-W)\) (\(k\) and \(N\) are constant parameters)
  4. \(\displaystyle \frac{dR}{dt} =-aR \ln \frac{R}{K}\) (\(a\) and \(K\) are constant parameters)

 

Exercise 7.13 Consider the following differential equation, where \(M\) represents a population of mayflies and \(t\) is time (given in months), and \(\delta\) is a mortality rate (units % mayflies / month): \[\begin{equation} \frac{dM}{dt} = - \delta \cdot M \end{equation}\] Determine the general solution to this differential equation and plot a few different solution curves with different values of \(\delta\). Assume that \(M(0) = 10,000\). Also identify the equilibrium solution to the differential equation and classify the stability of the equilibrium solution based on your solution curves.
 

Exercise 7.14 An alternative model of mayfly mortality is the following: \[\begin{equation} \displaystyle \frac{dM}{dt} = - \delta(t) \cdot M, \end{equation}\] where \(\delta(t)\) is a time dependent mortality function. Determine a solution and plot a solution curve (assuming \(M(0)=10,000\) and over the interval from \(0 \leq t \leq 1\)) for this differential equation when \(\delta(t)\) has the following forms:

  1. \(\delta(t) = t^{2}\)
  2. \(\delta(t) = 1-t^{2}\)
Provide a reasonable biological explanation justifying the use of this alternative mayfly model.

References

Scholz, Gudrun, and Fritz Scholz. 2014. “First-Order Differential Equations in Chemistry.” Chemtexts 1 (1): 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40828-014-0001-x.