MHB How to know if there's an explicit solution for differential equation

find_the_fun
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Solve the given differential equation by separation of variables

$$y\ln{x}\frac{dx}{dy}=(\frac{y+1}{x})^2$$

I got it down to

[math]\ln{x}x^3-\frac{x^3}{3}=y^3+3y+y^2[/math]

At this point I had no idea how to solve having y^3 y^2 and y terms so I did what any good student would do and checked the back of the book. The answer given was basically the same as I had got. My question is how do you know when you are done?
 
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I get a different result:

$$\frac{y^2}{2}+2y+\ln|y|=\frac{x^3}{9}\left(3\ln(x)-1 \right)+C$$

I would look at the fact that we can solve for neither variable in terms of elementary functions because both are both inside and outside of log functions. So, I would leave the solution implicitly defined.
 
find_the_fun said:
Solve the given differential equation by separation of variables

$$y\ln{x}\frac{dx}{dy}=(\frac{y+1}{x})^2$$

I got it down to

[math]\ln{x}x^3-\frac{x^3}{3}=y^3+3y+y^2[/math]

At this point I had no idea how to solve having y^3 y^2 and y terms so I did what any good student would do and checked the back of the book. The answer given was basically the same as I had got. My question is how do you know when you are done?

It's a separable equation...

\displaystyle \begin{align*} y\ln{(x)}\,\frac{dx}{dy} &= \left( \frac{y + 1}{x} \right) ^2 \\ y\ln{(x)}\,\frac{dx}{dy} &= \frac{y^2 + 2y + 1}{x^2} \\ x^2\ln{(x)}\,\frac{dx}{dy} &= \frac{y^2 + 2y + 1}{y} \\ x^2\ln{(x)}\,\frac{dx}{dy} &= y + 2 + \frac{1}{y} \end{align*}

Now you can integrate both sides with respect to y.
 
I have the equation ##F^x=m\frac {d}{dt}(\gamma v^x)##, where ##\gamma## is the Lorentz factor, and ##x## is a superscript, not an exponent. In my textbook the solution is given as ##\frac {F^x}{m}t=\frac {v^x}{\sqrt {1-v^{x^2}/c^2}}##. What bothers me is, when I separate the variables I get ##\frac {F^x}{m}dt=d(\gamma v^x)##. Can I simply consider ##d(\gamma v^x)## the variable of integration without any further considerations? Can I simply make the substitution ##\gamma v^x = u## and then...

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