Re: [Help-gsl] ODE solvers and overdamped motion

[Frank Reininghaus]

Hi,

2009/9/11 Jonny Taylor <address@hidden>:
> the issue I am having can be seen in a simple overdamped spring
> calculation (the derivatives function simply returns dydt[i] = -y[i] * 9.0).

Such ODEs are called 'stiff equations', see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiff_equation

> This makes me wonder
> if there is something I can do, or a different stepper I can use, that will
> improve the performance. I wonder if fundamentally the problem is that the
> motion involved is exponential decay

This is indeed the case. You might want to try one of the implicit ODE solvers.

Best regards,
Frank