Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 ia Paper 2 1A Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The complementary solution comes from the characteristic equation , whose roots are . It is thereforeFor the resonant exponential particular solution, the forcing is already a homogeneous exponential, so the method of undetermined coefficients needs the resonant trial . If , the identity when gives . Hence andThe decay condition first eliminates the growing exponential, . A nonzero combination of the sine and cosine has a fixed nonzero amplitude and cannot tend to zero, so as well. Both remaining exponential terms decay because . Finally , giving the unique answerThis is an instance of resonance in a differential equation: multiplication by supplies the particular solution when the forcing exponent is a simple characteristic root.