Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Comments on Is it possible to find a solution for any $ae^{bx}+cx+d=0$?

Post

Is it possible to find a solution for any $ae^{bx}+cx+d=0$?

+3
−0

So I enjoy solving problems of the form$$ae^{bx}+cx+d=0$$$$a,b,c\ne0$$however what I don't particularly enjoy is having to solve that equation every single time I come across it. So what I want to know is: Is there a way to solve every non-algebraically solvable equation of that form?

Here is my attempt:$$ae^{bx}+cx+d=0\implies a+(cx+d)e^{-bx}=0$$$$\implies(cx+d)e^{-bx}=-a\quad\text{rearranging terms}$$$$\implies((-c/b)(-bx-bd/c))e^{-bx}=-a$$$$\implies(-bx-bd/c)e^{-bx}=ab/c$$$$\implies(-bx-bd/c)e^{-bx-bd/c}=(ab/c)e^{-bd/c}$$and now taking the Lambert W of both sides (note that the solution uses $W_k(z)$ since all branches of the product log function will yield a valid solution),$$-bx-bd/c=W_k((ab/c)e^{-bd/c})$$which leads to the solution$$x=(1/b)W_k((ab/c)e^{-bd/c})-d/c$$However, my question is: Is my solution valid, or how would one go about finding the solution for any $ae^{bx}+cx+d$ where $a,b,c\ne0$?

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

1 comment thread

Getting rid of two variables (a,b) (1 comment)
Getting rid of two variables (a,b)
purplenanite‭ wrote 7 months ago

This doesn't quite solve the problem, but since a,b are not equal to 0, you can get rid of them without loss of generality. For example, dividing by a will just get rid of the variable "a", and leave c/a and d/a, so you can set a=1 likewise, you can transform bx->x, at the cost of cx-> c/b x but since the variables are just labels, you can map a solution of e^x+cx+d=0 to the one above, and that gets rid of at least 2 variables.