Talk:Abel's identity

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Mathematics rating:	Start Class	Low Priority	Field: Analysis
Please update this rating as the article progresses, or if the rating is inaccurate. Click to show/hide comments. Please add to or update the comments to suggest improvements to the article. Geometry guy 00:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Somebody recently edited Wronskian to remove the "second-order" qualifier, with edit summary: "Abel's identity works for any order of linear differential equation, and some non-linear ones". I don't know if that's true or not, but the two articles should probably both say the same thing on that point. --Delirium 22:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It should work for nth order linear differential equations, even if they do not have constant coefficients. The "Generalization" section at the bottom of the page mentions this. The proof is not too difficult and is covered in Tom M. Apostol's Calculus Vol. 2, pages 161 and 162. I would suggest placing the generalized version at the top, placing a proof below it, and using the second order equation as an example at the bottom. I have also seen it called "Liouville's formula," so I will add a redirect page to here.Teply (talk) 19:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)