Integrating the separable, first-order ordinary differential equation
I can't solve the very first problem from Slater & Frank's book, and have no one to help me (I'm self-studying it in these vacations):
1. A particle moves in a vertical line under the action of gravity and a viscous force (−av) where v is its velocity. Show that the velocity at any time is given by
Show that this solution reduces [...].
What I did is:
The resultant force is , and so by Newton's Second Law,
Since m, a, and g are constants in this case, this is a first-order ODE, which also happens to be a separable one.
We rewrite it as a relation between differentials:
But I have no idea how to integrate the left side relative to v. Despite the fact that the exercise already gave the solution, v(t).
Am I doing it right? Or maybe there is a simpler way using methods specials from mathematical mechanics?