- #1
Hertz
- 180
- 8
Homework Statement
Solve the System of DEs:
[itex]\sqrt{1+y'^{2}+z'^{2}}-\frac{y'^{2}}{\sqrt{1+y'^{2}+z'^{2}}}=C_{1}[/itex]
[itex]\sqrt{1+y'^{2}+z'^{2}}-\frac{z'^{2}}{\sqrt{1+y'^{2}+z'^{2}}}=C_{2}[/itex]
Homework Equations
The two equations above are quite relevant.
The Attempt at a Solution
I attempted basic substitution to do is this:
Multiply through by the radical
Cancel terms
Solve for y' and z' in terms of each other
Plug them into each other and then attempt to solve
I ended up trying to solve for y' first. What I got is a solvable polynomial in terms of y'; a quite tedious looking polynomial at that. I stopped here and began erasing. Maybe I was doing it right, but I don't even want to see what happens when I plug it into the quadratic equation and then attempt to substitute it back into the z' equation.. It sounds like WAYYY to long of a process considering this is physics homework, not math homework.
Can anybody give me some advice? Any good way to approach problems like these? I'm starting to encounter them a lot and it's always the part of the problem that I spend hours looking at :\