Applications of PDE

Radioactive Decay

Many radioactive materials disintegrate at a rate proportional to the amount present. For
example, if X is the radioactive material and Q(t) is the amount present at time t, then the rate of
change of Q(t) with respect to time t is given by

where r is a positive constant (r>0). Let us call the initial quantity of the material X,
then we have

Clearly, in order to determine Q(t) we need to find the constant r. This can be done using what is
called the half-life T of the material X. The half-life is the time span needed to disintegrate half

of the material. So, we have . An easy calculation gives . Therefore, if

we know T, we can get r and vice-versa. Many chemistry text-books contain the half-life of some
important radioactive materials. For example, the half-life of Carbon-14 is .
Therefore, the constant r associated with Carbon-14 is . As a side note, Carbon-
14 is an important tool in the archeological research known as radiocarbon dating.

Example: A radioactive isotope has a half-life of 16 days. You wish to have 30 g at the end of
30 days. How much radioisotope should you start with?

Solution: Since the half-life is given in days we will measure time in days. Let Q(t) be the
amount present at time t and the amount we are looking for (the initial amount). We know that

where r is a constant. We use the half-life T to determine r. Indeed, we have

Hence, since

we get

Newton's Law of Cooling

From experimental observations it is known that (up to a ``satisfactory'' approximation) the

surface temperature of an object changes at a rate proportional to its relative temperature. That is,
the difference between its temperature and the temperature of the surrounding environment. This

is what is known as Newton's law of cooling. Thus, if is the temperature of the object at
time t, then we have

where S is the temperature of the surrounding environment. A qualitative study of this

phenomena will show that k >0. This is a first order linear differential equation. The solution,

under the initial condition , is given by

Hence,

which implies
This equation makes it possible to find k if the interval of time is known and vice-versa.

Example: Time of Death Suppose that a corpse was discovered in a motel room at midnight and
its temperature was . The temperature of the room is kept constant at . Two hours later
the temperature of the corpse dropped to . Find the time of death.

Solution: First we use the observed temperatures of the corpse to find the constant k. We have

In order to find the time of death we need to remember that the temperature of a corpse at time of
death is (assuming the dead person was not sick!). Then we have

which means that the death happened around 7:26 P.M.

Orthogonal Trajectories

We have seen before (see separable equations for example) that the solutions of a differential
equation may be given by an implicit equation with a parameter something like

This is an equation describing a family of curves. Whenever we fix the parameter C we get one
curve and vice-versa. For example, consider the families of curves

Where m and C are parameters . Clearly, we may change the names of the variables and still
have the same geometric curves. For example, the above families define the same geometric
object as

Note that the first family describes all the lines passing by the origin (0,0) while the second the
family describes all the circles centered at the origin (including the limit case when the radius 0
which reduces to the single point (0,0)) (see the pictures below).
and
In this page, we will only use the variables x and y. Any family of curves will be written as

One may ask whether any family of curves may be generated from a differential equation? In
general, the answer is no. Let us see how to proceed if the answer were to be yes. First

differentiate with respect to x, and get a new equation involving in general x, y, , and C.
Using the original equation, we may able to eliminate the parameter C from the new equation.

Example. Find the differential equation satisfied by the family

Answer. We differentiate with respect to x, to get

Since we have

then we get

You may want to do some algebra to make the new equation easy to read. The next step is to
rewrite this equation in the explicit form

this is the desired differential equation.

Example. Find the differential equation (in the explicit form) satisfied by the family

Answer. We have already found the differential equation in the implicit form

Algebraic manipulations give

Let us reconsider the example of the two families

If we draw the two families together on the same graph we get

As we see here something amazing happened. Indeed, it is clear that whenever one line intersects
one circle, the tangent line to the circle (at the point of intersection) and the line are
perpendicular or orthogonal. We say the two curves are orthogonal at the point of intersection.

Definition. Consider two families of curves and . We say that and are orthogonal
whenever any curve from intersects any curve from , the two curves are orthogonal at the
point of intersection.

For example, we have seen that the families y = m x and are orthogonal. One
may then ask the following natural question:

Given a family of curves , is it possible to find a family of curves which is orthogonal to

?
The answer to this question has many implications in many areas such as physics, fluid-
dynamics, etc... In general this question is very difficult. But in some cases, we may be able to
carry on the calculations and find the orthogonal family. Let us show how.

Consider the family of curves . We assume that an associated differential equation may be
found, say

We know that for any curve from the family passing by the point (x,y), the slope of the tangent at
this point is f(x,y). Hence the slope of the line perpendicular (or orthogonal) to this tangent is

which happens to be the slope of the tangent line to the orthogonal curve passing by
the point (x,y). In other words, the family of orthogonal curves are solutions to the differential
equation

From this we see what we have to do. Indeed consider a family of curves . In order to find the
orthogonal family, we use the following practical steps

Step 1. Find the associated differential equation.

Step 2. Rewrite this differential equation in the explicit form

Step 3. Write down the differential equation associated to the orthogonal family

Step 4. Solve the new equation. The solutions are exactly the family of orthogonal curves.

Step 5. You may be asked to give a geometric view of the two families. Also you may be asked to
find a specific curve from the orthogonal family (something like an IVP).

Example. Find the orthogonal family to the family of circles

Answer. First, we look for the differential equation satisfied by the circles. We differentiate with
respect to the variable x to get

We rewrite this equation in the explicit form

Next we write down the equation for the orthogonal family

This is a linear as well as a separable equation. If we use the technique of linear equations, we
get the integrating factor

which gives

We recognize the family of lines and we confirm our earlier observation (that the two families
are indeed orthogonal).

This example is somehow easy and was given here to illustrate the technique.

Example. Find the orthogonal family to the family of circles

Answer. We have seen before that the explicit differential equation associated to the family of
circles is

Hence the differential equation for the orthogonal family is

We recognize an homogeneous equation. Let us use the technique developed to solve this kind of

equations. Consider the new variable (or equivalently y = x z). Then we have
and

Hence we have

Algebraic manipulations imply

This is a separable equation. The constant solutions are given by

which gives z=0. The non-constant solutions are found once we separate the variables

and then we integrate

Before we perform the integration for the left-hand side, we need to use partial decomposition
technique. We have

We will leave the details to you to show that A = 1, B=-2, and C=0. Hence we have
Hence

which is equivalent to

where . Putting all the solutions together we get

Going back to the variable y, we get

which is equivalent to

We recognize a family of circles centered on the y-axis and the line y=0 (the x-axis which was
easy to guess, isn't it?)
If we put both families together, we appreciate better the orthogonality of the curves (see the
picture below).
Population Dynamics

Here are some natural questions related to population problems:

 What will the population of a certain country be in ten years?

 How are we protecting the resources from extinction?

More can be said about the problem but, in this little review we will not discuss them in detail. In order
to illustrate the use of differential equations with regard to this problem we consider the easiest
mathematical model offered to govern the population dynamics of a certain species. It is commonly
called the exponential model, that is, the rate of change of the population is proportional to the existing
population. In other words, if P(t) measures the population, we have
 ,

where the rate k is constant. It is fairly easy to see that if k > 0, we have growth, and if k <0, we
have decay. This is a linear equation which solves into

where is the initial population, i.e. . Therefore, we conclude the following:

 if k>0, then the population grows and continues to expand to infinity, that is,

 if k<0, then the population will shrink and tend to 0. In other words we are facing extinction.

Clearly, the first case, k>0, is not adequate and the model can be dropped. The main argument for this
has to do with environmental limitations. The complication is that population growth is eventually
limited by some factor, usually one from among many essential resources. When a population is far
from its limits of growth it can grow exponentially. However, when nearing its limits the population size
can fluctuate, even chaotically. Another model was proposed to remedy this flaw in the exponential
model. It is called the logistic model (also called Verhulst-Pearl model). The differential equation for this
model is

where M is a limiting size for the population (also called the carrying capacity). Clearly, when
P is small compared to M, the equation reduces to the exponential one. In order to solve this
equation we recognize a nonlinear equation which is separable. The constant solutions are P=0
and P=M. The non-constant solutions may obtained by separating the variables

and integration

The partial fraction techniques gives

 ,

which gives

Easy algebraic manipulations give

where C is a constant. Solving for P, we get

If we consider the initial condition (assuming that is not equal to both 0 or M), we
get

which, once substituted into the expression for P(t) and simplified, we find

It is easy to see that

However, this is still not satisfactory because this model does not tell us when a population is
facing extinction since it never implies that. Even starting with a small population it will always
tend to the carrying capacity M.