What am I doing when I separate the variables of a differential equation?

Solution 1:

The basic justification is that integration by substitution works, which in turn is justified by the chain rule and the fundamental theorem of calculus.

More specifically, suppose you have: $$\frac{dy}{dx} = g(x) h(y)$$ Rewrite as: $$\frac{1}{h(y)} \frac{dy}{dx} = g(x)$$ Add the implicit dependency of $y$ on $x$ to obtain $$\frac{1}{h(y(x))} \frac{dy}{dx} = g(x)$$

Now, integrate both sides with respect to $x$: $$\int \frac{1}{h(y(x))} \frac{dy}{dx} \, dx = \int g(x) \, dx$$ If we do a variable substitution of $y$ for $x$ on the left-hand side (i.e., use the integration by substitution technique), we replace $\frac{dy}{dx} dx$ with $dy$. Thus we have $$\int \frac{1}{h(y)}\, dy = \int g(x) \, dx,$$ which is the separation of variables formula.

So if you believe integration by substitution, then separation of variables is valid.

Solution 2:

"Separation of variables" in ODE (which has nothing to do with separation of variables in PDE) is a kind of magic that is easy to perform but difficult to justify.

Assume that in the given differential equation the quantities $x$ and $y$ are functions of a hidden variable $t$ (time). Then the equation $y\>y'=e^x$ is equivalent to $y(t){\dot y(t)\over \dot x(t)}\equiv e^{x(t)}$, resp. $$y(t)\dot y(t)\equiv e^{x(t)}\dot x(t).$$ Integrating this from $t=0$ to $t=T$ one gets $${1\over2}(y^2(T)-y_0^2)=e^{x(T)}-e^{x_0},$$ where $(x_0,y_0)$ is the initial condition and $T$ is arbitrary. This means: At any given time the quantities $x$ and $y$ are related by the equation $${1\over2}(y^2-y_0^2)=e^x-e^{x_0}.$$ Looking back, one can see that the relation between $x$ and $y$ obtained in this way is exactly the equation obtained by following the recipe given in the books.

Solution 3:

maybe its better to think of it as $y\frac{dy}{dx}=e^x$. the two functions of $x$ are equal, so their indefinite integrals (with respect to $x$) are equal (i.e. the way you talked about it at the end). moving the "differentials" around is more of a convenience.