5/27/2017 DifferentialEquationsTheDefinition

heDeinition
Youknow,itsalwaysalittlescarywhenwedevoteawholesectionjusttothedefinitionof
something.Laplacetransforms(orjusttransforms)canseemscarywhenwefirststartlookingatthem.
However,aswewillsee,theyarentasbadastheymayappearatfirst.

BeforewestartwiththedefinitionoftheLaplacetransformweneedtogetanotherdefinitionoutoftheway.

Afunctioniscalledpiecewisecontinuousonanintervaliftheintervalcanbebrokenintoafinitenumberof
subintervalsonwhichthefunctioniscontinuousoneachopensubinterval(i.e.thesubintervalwithoutits
endpoints)andhasafinitelimitattheendpointsofeachsubinterval.Belowisasketchofapiecewise
continuousfunction.

Inotherwords,apiecewisecontinuousfunctionisafunctionthathasafinitenumberofbreaksinitand
doesntblowuptoinfinityanywhere.

Now,letstakealookatthedefinitionoftheLaplacetransform.

Definition
Supposethatf(t)isapiecewisecontinuousfunction.TheLaplacetransform
off(t)isdenoted anddefinedas
(1)

http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/DE/LaplaceDefinition.aspx 1/1