In mathematics, a change of variables is a basic technique used to simplify problems in which the original variables are replaced with functions of other variables. The intent is that when expressed in new variables, the problem may become simpler, or equivalent to a better understood problem.
Contents
- Simple example
- Formal introduction
- Coordinate transformation
- Differentiation
- Integration
- Differential equations
- Scaling and shifting
- Momentum vs velocity
- Lagrangian mechanics
- References
Change of variables is an operation that is related with substitution. However these are different operations, as it can be seen when considering differentiation (chain rule) or integration (integration by substitution).
A very simple example of a useful variable change can be seen in the problem of finding the roots of the sixth order polynomial:
Sixth order polynomial equations are generally impossible to solve in terms of radicals (see Abel–Ruffini theorem). This particular equation, however, may be written
(this is a simple case of a polynomial decomposition). Thus the equation may be simplified by defining a new variable x3 = u. Substituting x by
which is just a quadratic equation with solutions:
The solutions in terms of the original variable are obtained by substituting x3 back in for u:
Then, assuming that x is real,
Simple example
Consider the system of equations
where
Solving this normally is not very difficult, but it may get a little tedious. However, we can rewrite the second equation as
Formal introduction
Let
The map
Coordinate transformation
Some systems can be more easily solved when switching to polar coordinates. Consider for example the equation
This may be a potential energy function for some physical problem. If one does not immediately see a solution, one might try the substitution
Note that if
Now the solutions can be readily found:
Note that, had we allowed
Differentiation
The chain rule is used to simplify complicated differentiation. For example, to calculate the derivative
the variable x may be changed by introducing x2 = u. Then, by the chain rule:
so that
where in the very last step u has been replaced with x2.
Integration
Difficult integrals may often be evaluated by changing variables; this is enabled by the substitution rule and is analogous to the use of the chain rule above. Difficult integrals may also be solved by simplifying the integral using a change of variables given by the corresponding Jacobian matrix and determinant. Using the Jacobian determinant and the corresponding change of variable that it gives is the basis of coordinate systems such as polar, cylindrical, and spherical coordinate systems.
Differential equations
Variable changes for differentiation and integration are taught in elementary calculus and the steps are rarely carried out in full.
The very broad use of variable changes is apparent when considering differential equations, where the independent variables may be changed using the chain rule or the dependent variables are changed resulting in some differentiation to be carried out. Exotic changes, such as the mingling of dependent and independent variables in point and contact transformations, can be very complicated but allow much freedom.
Very often, a general form for a change is substituted into a problem and parameters picked along the way to best simplify the problem.
Scaling and shifting
Probably the simplest change is the scaling and shifting of variables, that is replacing them with new variables that are "stretched" and "moved" by constant amounts. This is very common in practical applications to get physical parameters out of problems. For an nth order derivative, the change simply results in
where
This may be shown readily through the chain rule and linearity of differentiation. This change is very common in practical applications to get physical parameters out of problems, for example, the boundary value problem
describes parallel fluid flow between flat solid walls separated by a distance δ; µ is the viscosity and
where
Scaling is useful for many reasons. It simplifies analysis both by reducing the number of parameters and by simply making the problem neater. Proper scaling may normalize variables, that is make them have a sensible unitless range such as 0 to 1. Finally, if a problem mandates numeric solution, the fewer the parameters the fewer the number of computations.
Momentum vs. velocity
Consider a system of equations
for a given function
Lagrangian mechanics
Given a force field
Lagrange examined how these equations of motion change under an arbitrary substitution of variables
He found that the equations
are equivalent to Newton's equations for the function
In fact, when the substitution is chosen well (exploiting for example symmetries and constraints of the system) these equations are much easier to solve than Newton's equations in Cartesian coordinates.