11/19/21, 11:50 AM Chapter 1, Section 1, Problem #27

Problem #27
Draw a direction field for the differential equation y'=te-2t -2y. Based on the direction field, determine the
behavior as t approaches infinity. If this behavior depends on the initial value of y at t = 0, describe this
dependency. Note that the right sides of these equations depend on t as well as y; therefore their solutions can
exhibit more complicated behavior than those in the text.

The MATLAB module 'dirfield.m' used to generate the figures below is available here.

Here is the direction field for this differential equation. From looking at the arrows, it seems that many solutions
will approach y = 0 as t approaches infinity. We also see that the curves to the left of the origin are so steep that
they appear vertical. It is not obvious what the long-term behavior of these nearly vertical curves will be.

If we look at solution curves for this differential equation using t0 = 0 and initial y-values of -2, -1, -0.1, 0.5, and
3, we get the following picture:

https://education.wiley.com/content/Boyce_Differential_Equations_11e/media/simulations/MATLAB_files/ch01/C1S1dir/Ch01Sec01Prob27.htm 1/2
11/19/21, 11:50 AM Chapter 1, Section 1, Problem #27

We can now predict that all solution curves approach y = 0, even though the curves on the left side of the figure
are very steep, and go very quickly off of the axes shown. Thus the long-term behavior of the solutions does not
depend on the initial value of y.

https://education.wiley.com/content/Boyce_Differential_Equations_11e/media/simulations/MATLAB_files/ch01/C1S1dir/Ch01Sec01Prob27.htm 2/2