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I was going through my notes on different finite difference methods and came across something I don't quite understand. I have code that will calculate an approximate solution we can call this $U_{nm}$ that I define on a grid using $h$ and $dt$ for the change in $x$ and time, respectively. Now I have written down the global error is just: $$e_{nm} =|U_{nm} - u(x_n,t_n)|$$ where $u(x_n,t_n)$ is the exact solution evaluated at the gird points. From there we can calculate our rate of convergence.

So I, perhaps naively, just assumed I could take the solution I calculate and subtract the exact solution at every point take the absolute value. However, I have written something about actually just using $e_{nm}$ to calculate the initial values as well as boundary conditions and then plugging them back into the finite difference method to calculate all the grid points for all of $e_{nm}$.

Is this correct or did I perhaps not fully understand what my instructor was saying?

(Note we are working with forward, backward and crank-nicolson methods)

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  • $\begingroup$ Would it be best for me to move it and just delete this question from here? $\endgroup$
    – user25783
    Feb 26, 2012 at 18:21
  • $\begingroup$ I flagged your question hoping it gets moderators attention & they would migrate the question to scicomp.SE. $\endgroup$
    – user182
    Feb 26, 2012 at 18:24
  • $\begingroup$ @user25783: I take your comment as indicating that you want it moved. So here it goes. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong
    Feb 26, 2012 at 23:27
  • $\begingroup$ this would work if you have the exact solution available... otherwise, you would have to find an upper bound on the error $e_{mn}$ in terms of the truncation error (from the finite difference scheme that you chose, i.e. crank-nicolson). $\endgroup$
    – Paul
    Mar 16, 2012 at 13:28

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However, I have written something about actually just using $e_{nm}$ to calculate the initial values as well as boundary conditions and then plugging them back into the finite difference method to calculate all the grid points for all of $e_{nm}$.

This statement doesn't make any sense, so you can safely assume you missed something in the lecture :) In the general case you will not have access to the true solution, your instructor may have described some strategies for evaluating the error or convergence in this situation.

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