In solving a differential equation with a finite-difference method, one computes derivatives with various combinations of the function's values at chosen grid points. For example, the forward difference formula for the first derivative is
where j is the grid index and h is the spacing between points. The systematic approach for deriving such formulas is to use Taylor series. In the example above, one can write
Then solving for
and neglecting terms of order
and higher gives
Because the exponent on h in the last term is 1, the method is called a first order method.
Write a function that takes the order n of the derivative and a vector terms indicating the terms to use (based on the number of grid cells away from the point in question) and produces a vector of coefficients, the order of the error term, and the numerical coefficient of the error term. In the above example, n = 1 and terms = [1 0], and
coeffs = [1 -1]
errOrder = 1
errCoeff = -0.5;
Solution Stats
Solution Comments
Show comments
Loading...
Problem Recent Solvers2
Suggested Problems
-
12053 Solvers
-
Project Euler: Problem 8, Find largest product in a large string of numbers
1305 Solvers
-
Removing rows from a matrix is easy - but what about inserting rows?
263 Solvers
-
Calculate compression ratio of engine
218 Solvers
-
Triangular matrices in 3D array
166 Solvers
More from this Author321
Problem Tags
Community Treasure Hunt
Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!
Start Hunting!