Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2003/paper-1/2/iii/solution

For a nonzero separated solution , separation of variables gives and . The endpoint conditions require and . Thus the mixed Dirichlet-Neumann modes on an interval have , . Their squared L2 norms are , so the initial Fourier coefficients are
The integration uses and . Therefore
At positive time the series can be differentiated termwise and satisfies both homogeneous endpoint conditions for . At time zero it recovers , so recovers the initial zero temperature. If , the prescribed derivative at is incompatible with differentiating the initial zero profile; the temperature is still continuous there, while its spatial derivative has a corner layer. At long times the decaying modes leave .
Figure 1.
Heating a bar through one end while the other end stays at zero temperature
. Original dimensionless temperature profiles at several diffusion times. The eventual linear profile has the imposed unit derivative at the heated end. Details.

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