Talk:Separation of variables/Archive 1

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Archive 1

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Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Before:

In mathematics, separation of variables is any of several methods of solving ordinary and partial differential equations, in which algebra allows to re-write an equation so that each of two variables occurs on only side of the equation and the other does not.

After:

In mathematics, separation of variables is any of several methods for solving ordinary and partial differential equations, in which algebra allows one to re-write an equation so that each of two variables occurs on only one side of the equation.

I have a problem with this edit. Suppose the equation is

xy'+(y'')^{2}=x^{3}.\,

This trivially becomes

xy'+(y'')^{2}-x^{3}=0.\,

Then clearly each of the two variables occurs on only one side of the equation. But the variables have not been separated! Michael Hardy 02:43, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

{{sofixit}}? I edited the copy of that sentence, not the content. It seems to me that neither the before nor the after clearly defines separation of variables. Starwiz 17:02, 18 February 2006 (UTC)