Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/5/b/i/solution

Let and . Apply the Laplace transform of a derivative twice and use the two zero initial conditions. The differential equation becomes
The factor is the Laplace transform of . The convolution theorem for Laplace transforms therefore gives
This is a causal convolution: the value at uses only the forcing up to . For ordinary continuous , direct differentiation gives and , verifying both the differential equation and the initial conditions. For an impulsive , the same formula is interpreted using distributions.

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