Systems of First Order ODEs

Since systems of differential equations are more complicated than single equations, handling them in MATLAB is a bit different. One must submit the RHS of the whole system to one of MATLAB's solvers rather than the RHS of just a single equation. So we can no longer just enter ftx= $\cdots$ directly into an init.m file as before. For systems, MATLAB requires that the RHS of the system be submitted as a matrix function that is contained in its own M-file. However for many systems, we can create generic function M-files, then supply the parameters specific to the situation in some kind of initialization file. (In our case, initsys.m.) To simplify matters, the generic M-files for functions as well as for solving and plotting will be made available to you. For those of you working at home, you can download them. At the Emporium, the files will be loaded onto the computers there. One further simplification will be to generally work in ${\rm I\kern-.20em R}^2$ so we can obtain relatively simple graphs.