Talk:Calculus/Ordinary differential equations

Section Move
I believe it would be a good idea to compile all of the sections of differential equations under a seperate module. Having its own section on the mathematics bookshelf would help with the overall organization of the mathematics section. There are so many different topics in differential equations that I feel the move is justified.

Spammy 16-06-04

That would have some advantages, but differential equations also clearly come under the calculus heading, and should be fully covered there, which means leaving those pages where they are.

Fortunately, Wikibooks has more flexibility than paper books. I see two obvious options.


 * We could copy the ODE coverage from this wikibook to a new ODE book, then expand on it in the new book to cover much beyond this book's scope, while leaving this book's coverage largely unaltered (since its ODE coverage is no more than I'd expect for a book of its declared scope.) Presumably PDE's would be treated in the same way.


 * We could regard the Calculus book as a multiple volume series, making the mathematics bookshelf an hierarchical list (which would certainly help with its organisation). Trying to fit all the maths books in at the same level obscures the dependance relations between the subjects, and multi-volume series are reasonably common for textbooks.


 * Do this, and the current Calculus book would be left with only links to its subsidary books, possible interleaving chapters from different books in a suggested order.

I prefer the second option. Anyone else got an opinion? Carandol 18:35, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just wanted to add that there is a Wikibook on differtial equation. Would save time and effort, if work on that book was coordinated from here. Would be better still if that effort was integrated into this, as Carando above suggests


 * I agree with all of the above. Differential Equations do not belong in an introductory calculus textbook, except as a small reference for further reading. 128.120.218.130 (talk) 22:14, 26 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I too agree that a comprehensive exposition of diff eqs belongs elsewhere. However, there is a little bit of it in Stewart and it is usually briefly touched in third-semester calculus (at the couple of schools I've been at).  So perhaps we should keep a bit. Tiled (talk) 17:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Explain the old style differential notation
It would be useful to have an explanation of the old style of writing differential equations where the dx and dy already appear as separate quantities, such as y - sin^2(x) dx + sin(x)dy = 0. The article shows treating separable equations by using dx and dy separately, but older texts also present non-separable equations with the differentials apart.

Tashirosgt (discuss • contribs) 06:23, 4 April 2011 (UTC)