Java Applet for Phase Plane

The PRINT option is currently disabled

To plot the solution curves of a two dimensional system of autonomous differential equations, click on the box beside the x'(t) = label, and enter an expression. Same for y'(t).
For a nonautonomous system y'=f(t,y) you can just think of x as t, and write x'=1 and y'=f(x,y). For example, the figure for dy/dt = y-t can be obtained by entering: x' = 1
y' = y - x click "show vectors", and then click an initial condition (try, for instance, clicking at (0,-2.5), (0,1) and (-2.5,2.5)).
Click anywhere in the graphing window to select an initial condition.
Click the Endpoints button to open a panel where you can adjust the range of x and y, or to change the time interval over which the solution is computed.
Click Erase for any changes to take effect.
Click the Show/Hide Vectors button to toggles the display of the slope field .
Click I.C. Grid to see 8 solution curves, from a grid of initial conditions.
Use symbols "E" and "PI" for e and pi; use ^ for powers (e.g., x^2 is x squared); write other functions as usual, e.g. tan(3*log(x))

Note: The parser recognizes all of the standard math functions defined in java.lang.Math. The symbols "E" and "PI" are recognized as java's Math.E and Math.PI.
The parser was written by Darius Bacon and is available at his web site. Please see his file on copying the software.

The java source for the rest of the applet lives in the three files: DrawCanvas.java, Grapher.java, and InputPanel.java. Please do not use it as an example of good java code.

The package uses a 4th order Runge-Kutta solver with a constant width mesh of 400 points, 200 from t = 0 to t = tmax and 200 from t = 0 to t = tmin. With this rather crude method it is easy to generate equations for which the solver fails badly (try x' = x^3). (As an aside, I have noticed that it is very easy to convert the code in Numerical Recipies in C into java code. A much better solver would be easy to write.)

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