Alternative solution of the inhomogeneous linear differential equation of order two

In this paper, we present an alternative method for solving the general inhomogeneous linear ordinary differential equation (ODE) of order two. The solution appears in the standard form as the sum of the solution of the equivalent homogeneous problem and the particular solution of the inhomogeneous problem at hand. The main advantage of the method exposed herein is that the particular solution is computable from two different integrals. This allows the problem solver to choose the simplest integral with which to work with in order to get the final solution. For illustrative purposes we employ the method presented to aid in the solution of some example problems including the inhomogeneous Klein–Gordon equation. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved