Chapter 3
Applications of first-order
differential equations
Mathematical modeling
Like most other tools in mathematics, the purpose of differential
equations is to construct a mathematical model for physical
problems; hence try to understand and predict the problem. The
method involves
a. assess physical understanding of the problem,
b. apply law of physics,
c. construct mathematical models,
d. solve the model,
e. use the model to predict the system,
f. modify the model and go back to step c.
This general procedure is used extensively by scientists, engineers
and all other professionals for modelling problems. Quite often
these models result in differential equations. To get exposure to the
variants of problems that can be modelled using simple first-order
differential equations, we see some examples.
Growth and Decay
By growth we are referring to the growth of population. It could be
a human population as well as other biological species.
Example 3.1 Bacterial growth
A culture initially has P0 number of bacteria. At t = 1 h the number
of bacteria is measured to be P0. If the rate of growth is
proportional to the number of bacteria P(t) present at time t,
determine the time necessary for the number of bacteria to triple.
According to the problem (and simplest accepted model) the
growth of bacteria at any time is proportional to the number of
bacteria P(t) at that time. Therefore
From here we can write
(3.1)
Where k is a constant of proportionality and P0 is the initial
number of bacteria. Equation (3.1) can be integrated to obtain
P(t) = P0ekt (3.2)
To find the proportionality constant k, we use the information
provided in the problem that at time t = 1, the bacteria growth was
∙
. Therefore . That gives
Substituting in (3.2)
P(t) = P0e0.4055t (3.3)
To find the time for the bacteria population to triple
3P0 = P0e0.4055t (3.4)
Solving this we obtain t ≈ 2.71 h.
Note that the time to triple does not depend on the initial amount.
Tumor growth
Understanding the growth of a tumor over time is important for
improving cancer treatment, early detection and diagnosis,
metastasis prevention, drug development and many other reasons.
A mathematical model for tumor growth typically uses a
differential equation to describe the rate of change of a tumor's
volume over time, with common models including the exponential
model (for early rapid growth), the logistic model (with a carrying
capacity limit), and the Gompertz model (incorporating a slowing
growth rate as the tumor gets larger), each with different
parameters representing growth rate and carrying capacity
depending on the specific tumor type and conditions.
Key points about tumor growth models:
Basic equation:
The general form of a tumor growth model is
(3.5)
where
V(t) is the tumor volume at time t.
k is a constant representing the intrinsic growth rate.
f(V) is a function that depends on the tumor volume and can
incorporate factors like nutrient availability, space
constraints, or cell death.
Exponential model:
(3.6)
Assumption: Tumor grows at a constant rate proportional to its
size.
Useful for early stages of tumor growth.
Logistic model:
(3.7)
Assumption: Growth rate slows down as the tumor
approaches a carrying capacity (K).
Represents a more realistic model for later stages of tumor
growth.
Gompertz model:
(3.8)
Assumption: Growth rate decreases exponentially with
increasing tumor size.
Often used to model tumor growth with a more gradual
slowing down compared to the logistic model.
As stated earlier, understanding tumor growth is important in
Oncology. We have just demonstrated how mathematical tools are
used in this field. These are some very basic and simple models
with more complicated models including angiogenesis, cell
migration and invasion, response of immune system. As this is a
very sensitive subject, still not very well understood, still a subject
of very active research, and as this is not the topic of these lectures,
we do not make any inadvertent, ill-informed conclusion by
showing very basic examples.
Radioactive decay
The nucleus of an atom consists of combinations of protons and
neutrons. Many of these combinations of protons and neutrons are
unstable—that is, the atoms decay or transmute into atoms of
another substance. Such nuclei are said to be radioactive. Ernst
Rutherford showed that within a given time period a fixed
proportion of the atoms spontaneously disintegrates to form atoms
of a new element. For example, over time the highly radioactive
radium, 226Ra, transmutes into the radioactive gas radon, 222Rn.
This phenomenon is referred to as Radioactive decay. Because
radioactivity is a property of the atom, Rutherford theorized that
the radioactivity of a substance is directly proportional to the
number of atoms of the substance present. Thus, if N(t) denotes the
number of atoms of an element present at time t, then dN/dt, the
number of atoms that disintegrate per unit time is proportional to
N(t), that is
or
The proportionality constant has been taken to be negative because
with decay the number of atoms of an elements N(t) will reduce. If
it is assumed that initially the number of atoms were N0, in other
words N(0) = N0, then
N(t) = N0e–kt (3.9)
The radioactive disintegration of any element is measured in terms
of its half-life. The half-life is a measure of the stability of a
radioactive substance. The half-life is simply the time it takes for
one-half of the atoms in an initial amount N0 to disintegrate, or
transmute, into the atoms of another element. The longer the half-
life of a substance, the more stable it is. For example, the half-life_
of highly radioactive radium, 226Ra is about 1700 years. In 1700
years one-half of a given quantity of 226Ra is transmuted into
radon, 222Rn. The most commonly occurring uranium isotope, 238U
has a half-life of approximately 4,500,000,000 years. In about 4.5
billion years, one-half of a quantity of 238U is transmuted into lead,
206
Pb.
Example 3.2 Half-life of Plutonium
A breeder reactor converts relatively stable uranium-238 into the
isotope plutonium-239. After 15 years it is determined that 0.043%
of the initial amount N0 of plutonium has disintegrated. Find the
half-life of this isotope if the rate of disintegration is proportional
to the amount remaining.
Let N(t) denote the amount of plutonium remaining at time t. Since
0.043% of atoms have disintegrated, 99.957% of the atoms remain.
Therefore N/N0 = 0.99957 after t = 15 years. Substituting these in
equation (3.9) we obtain 0.99957 = e–k15. Solving this we obtain k =
0.00002867.
For half-life, N(t)/N0 = 0.5. Therefore 0.5 = e–0.00002867t. Solving for
t, we obtain t ≈ 24,180 years.
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is used for determining the age of
archeological findings (due to Willard Libby at the University of
Chicago, 1950). The basis of this method is quite simple: The
atmosphere of the earth is continuously bombarded by cosmic rays.
These cosmic rays produce neutrons in the earth's atmosphere, and
these neutrons combine with nitrogen to produce 14C, which is
usually called radiocarbon, since it decays radioactively.
Radiocarbon is incorporated in carbon dioxide and thus moves
through the atmosphere to be absorbed by plants. Animals, in turn,
build radiocarbon into their tissues by eating the plants. In living
tissue, the rate of ingestion of 14C exactly balances the rate of
disintegration of 14C. When an organism dies it ceases to ingest
carbon-14 and thus its 14C concentration begins to decrease
through disintegration of the 14C present. It is a fundamental
assumption of physics that the rate of bombardment of the earth's
atmosphere by cosmic rays has always been constant. This implies
that the original rate of disintegration of 14C in a sample of living
being such as charcoal, bones, skin, parchment is the same as the
rate measured today. This assumption enables us to determine the
age of the sample. We present one case, and will mention some
interesting cases
Example 3.3 Lascaux caves, France
In 1940 the entrance to a network of caves was discovered –
playfully – by an 18-year-old boy and his dog. The walls of the
caves depicted several paintings (Figure 3.1). As the caves became
a matter of interest, over the next several years about 6,000
paintings were discovered. An obvious question was who were the
cave dwellers? After the second world war – by which time
Willard Libby had devised his method at the University of
Figure 3.1 Some paintings inside
Lascaux caves.
Chicago, several samples of wood from the cave were tested at U
Chicago and showed 0.97 disintegrations per minute per gram for
14
C, whereas living wood showed 6.68 disintegrations. Libby had
earlier determined the half-life of 14C to be 5,600 years that is now
corrected to be 5,730 years. Therefore 0.5 = e–k5730, giving k =
0.000120968. Now, considering the present disintegrations as N(t)
= 0.97, initial disintegrations N0 = 6.68, with the decay constant k,
from equation (3.9) we get
N(t) = N0e–kt
0.97 = 6.68e–0.00120968t
This gives t ≈ 15,951 years
No one knows for sure who these cave dwellers were.
Example 3.4 Nippur Babylonia (Iraq)
In the 1950 excavations at Nippur, a city of Babylonia, charcoal
from a roof beam gave a count of 4.09 disintegrations per minute
per gram. Living wood gave 6.68 disintegrations. This gives an
approximate age of approximately 4,100 years old. This
corresponds to the reign of Hammurabi.
Figure 3.2 Gnostic Gospel of Judas.
Figure 3.3 Ötzi, the iceman.
Other interesting archeological findings related to radiocarbon
dating are
furniture found in Egyptian tombs;
recently discovered copy of the Gnostic Gospel of Judas
written on papyrus (Figure 3.2). A leather-bound Coptic
language papyrus document surfaced during the 1970s in
Egypt. It was dated to 280 ± 60 years AD;
Ötzi, an ice-preserved mummified iceman was discovered in
1991 on Alps Mountain on the border between Italy and
Austria (Figure 3.3). Its age was found to be between 3,350
and 3,105 BC;
Figure 3.4 Part of the Bakhshali Manuscript
Figure 3.5 Birmingham manuscript of
The Holy Quran
The Bakhshali manuscript is an ancient Indian mathematical
text written on birch bark that was found in 1881 in the village
of Bakhshali, Mardan, near Peshawar in present-
day Pakistan (Figure 3.4). The manuscript is known to have
contained the earliest known Indian use of a zero symbol.
Some portions of the manuscript have been carbon-dated to
224-383 AD.
Two leaves of parchments in possession of the University of
Birmingham were identified to be hand-written leaves of the
Holy Quran (Figure 3.5). They were carbon-dated to between
568 and 645 AD.
In Bangladesh samples of wood from Wari-Bateshwar, a
purported fort-city near Narsingdi were carbon-dated and were
found to be from around 450 BC;
Mixing
Many problems in engineering can be modelled as continuing
mixing of two solutions. Though this is a standard problem in
chemical engineering industrial processes, similar situation arises
in combustion chambers, fuel injectors, jet engines and many other
places. These situations arise in biological problems also where
there may be a mixing of infected and uninfected fluids. We
develop a model of the problem through an example.
Example 3.5 Mixing
At time t = 0 a tank contains Q0 kg of salt dissolved in 100 gal of
water. Assume that water containing kg of salt per gallon enters
the tank at a rate of r gal/min and that the well-stirred mixture is
draining from the tank at the same rate. Set up the initial value
problem that describes this flow process. (i) Find the amount of
salt Q(t) in the tank at any time. (ii) Find the limiting amount QL
that is present after a very long time.
We assume that salt is neither created nor destroyed in the tank.
Therefore, variations in the amount of salt are due solely to the
flows in and out of the tank. More precisely, the rate of change of
salt in the tank, dQ/dt, is equal to the rate at which salt is flowing
in minus the rate at which it is flowing out. In symbols,
(3.10)
The rate at which salt enters the tank is the concentration kg/gal
times the flow rate r gal/min, or r/4 kg/min. To find the rate at
which salt leaves the tank, we need to multiply the concentration of
salt in the tank by the rate of outflow, r gal/min. Since the rates of
flow in and out are equal, the volume of water in the tank remains
constant at 100 gal, and since the mixture is “well-stirred,” the
concentration throughout the tank is the same, namely,
Q(t)/100 kg/gal. Therefore, the rate at which salt leaves the tank is
rQ(t)/100 kg/min. Thus, the differential equation governing this
process is
Q(0) = Q0 (3.11)
To solve the initial value problem (3.11) analytically, note that
equation (3.11) is linear as well as separable. Rewriting (3.11) in
standard linear form, we have
(3.12)
With integrating factor ert/100, the general solution is
Q(t) = 25 + ce–rt/100 (3.13)
Using the initial condition, we obtain c = Q0 – 25. Therefore, we
obtain the solution
Q(t) = 25 + (Q0 – 25)e–rt/100 (3.14)
This answers part (i).
For part (ii), we let the time t approach infinity (t → ∞) in (3.14).
This results in Q(t) → 25. Therefore, QL = 25.
Falling bodies
A body of mass m is falling under gravity. We want to analyze the
motion of the body.
Example 3.6 Falling bodies
Let us assume that the body of mass 10 kg has been dropped from
a height of 500 m. The body is encountering air resistance. A
simple model for air resistance is to assume that it is proportional
to the velocity of the body. The fundamental law of physics here is
Newton’s second law of motion.
F = ma (3.15)
The forces acting on the body are the downward weight and the
upward air resistance. Because gravity is downwards, we consider
downward as positive. Therefore
(3.16)
where is the proportionality constant for the air resistance.
Considering the acceleration due to gravity g = 9.8 m/s, and the air
resistance constant = 2 kg/s and recall that the mass m = 10 kg,
we obtain
v(0) = 0 (3.17)
We separate the variables in the equation, and write this as
After integration, and solving for the constant of integration, the
solution is
v(t) = 49(1 – e–t/5) (3.18)
This is the equation of motion representing velocity as a function
of time.
We want to estimate two more entities. We want to estimate the
time it would take for the body to fall to earth and the velocity as it
reaches the earth. To do this, we rewrite (3.18) as
x(0) = 0 (3.19)
where x(t) is the distance travelled (which is 0 at the start). This
can also be integrated, and after evaluation of the constant of
integration, we obtain
x(t) = 49t + 245e–t/5 – 245 (3.20)
To obtain the time to fall to earth, we set x(t) = 500 in this
equation.
49t + 245e–t/5 – 245 = 500 (3.21)
This equation has to be solved numerically (there are number of
very sophisticated algorithms to do this). From (3.21)
t ≈ 14.953 secs. Substituting this time in equation (3.18), we obtain
the velocity as the body reaches the ground, v ≈ 46.537 m/s.
Exercise
Boyce, DiPrima, Meade, p 49, problems 1-18
Dennis Zill, p 91, problems 1-22.