Laplace transforms are on your ideas list. Pardon me if I am slightly ignorant, as we have just started learning about these, but part the thing that makes Laplace transforms so great for solving ODEs is that taking the Laplacian of a differential gives you back the initial conditions of the function (assuming the solution doesn't grow faster than e^x). So far, dsolve doesn't even include a way to include initial conditions (another thing to implement). But yes, taking the Laplacian of a regular function should be as simple as plugging it into the definition, assuming sympy's integration engine can support it (which it usually should, as most are just integration by parts with simple improper limits).
But never mind that. I think that I could fill a whole summer just implementing what I have already learned, especially considering things like variation of parameters and substitutions. I tried implementing that patch, but so far I am having a couple of stumbling blocks. Pardon me again if I sound ignorant, but as I have said, I have never worked with an open source project before. I have also had very little experience with modules (basically, I was taught them, but I have never tried to make any, and so I have forgotten how they work). My problem is this: how do I edit the source so I can test it. So far, the only way I can see to do this is to reinstall with setup.py each time I make an edit, then reload python. Aside from having many steps, this forces me to overwrite my released version of sympy with the version that I am working on, which I don't necessarily want to do. Is there a way I can test this from a separate directory. By the way, I am running Mac OS X 10.5. Also, as I predicted, I am having difficulties understanding the match function that the ODE solving functions use. How exactly does this work? As far as I can tell, it returns a dictionary of the variables of the function, but what are these set to. I probably could figure this one out, but as I said above, I currently don't know how to test this very efficiently. And of course, if I actually manage to churn out something that works, I have no idea how to submit it. Sorry about all that. Aaron --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To post to this group, send email to sympy@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
