what is the general theory of extracting solutions from DSolve (and similar) functions
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg45553] what is the general theory of extracting solutions from DSolve (and similar) functions
- From: nma124 at hotmail.com (steve_H)
- Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 04:04:06 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
hello, I am learning Mathematica (Mathematica 5.0) and I am having hard time finding a general method that works everytime to extract solutions from output of DSolve and other Mathematica functions that generates solutions in the same format. I have seen examples that work when the solution contains only one result. I have read that the output of DSolve is in triple nested format. I have seen examples that Flattens the output of DSolve before doing anything on it to remove the extra nesting. Now, Assuming I want to do this in a script (i.e. without looking at the output of DSolve), so I need to assume there is more than one solution. I tried to write [r,c]=Dimensions[sol] to see how many solutions there are, but this failed when there is only one solution. (sol above is the result of calling DSolve). I've seen things written like this: sol = DSolve[{y'[x] == a y[x], y[0] == 1}, y[x], x] y = First[y[x] /. sol] but this assume there is one solution. right? I am interested in plotting all the solutions, so I guess I need to have a loop that extracts each solution in turn from the output of DSolve and plots each in turn. is there a good way to do this? A general generic approach which works everytime regardless of the number of solutions? thanks, Steve