How Do You Solve the Wave Equation on a Half-Line?

  • Thread starter Thread starter sarahisme
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Wave Wave equation
sarahisme
Messages
64
Reaction score
0
lol my head is about to explode! :P

i think this is similar to a previous question i asked but i can't quite get it none the less...

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/7796/picture11gf9.png

now what i did was to following this :

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/951/picture12yv1.png

then using equations (31) & (32) from that i just plugged in the values and got:

u(x,t) = 1 for x > ct and u(x,t) = 0 for 0 < x < ct

how does this look to you intelligent mathematically inclined people? :S

Sarah :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Physics news on Phys.org
but then how do you find a singularity when you have an answer of 1 and 0? :S
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
Back
Top