In the fall semester of [redacted], my professor for a course on ordinary differential equations said, “There are two groups of people in the world: those who can solve first-order linear ordinary differential equations and those who can’t. By the end of this lecture, you will be in the first group.”
I clearly remember appreciating the cleverness of the integrating factor that we learned that day. I also recall the professor exhorting us not to memorize the final formula but to remember the approach.
Write a function to solve an equation of the form
y' + p(x) y = q(x)
with the condition y(x0) = y0. The function should return the values of y at the specified values of x.
Although MATLAB ODE functions are allowed, I would like someone to demonstrate how to implement the analytical approach using an integrating factor in MATLAB. Those who can will received the coveted unscored bonus points.
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Last Solution submitted on Jul 16, 2026

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Chris Cleveland George Berken Gengyue Ankitkumar Ratan

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