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Concept
Initial condition
Summary
In mathematics and particularly in dynamic systems, an initial condition, in some contexts called a seed value, is a value of an evolving variable at some point in time designated as the initial time (typically denoted t = 0). For a system of order k (the number of time lags in discrete time, or the order of the largest derivative in continuous time) and dimension n (that is, with n different evolving variables, which together can be denoted by an n-dimensional coordinate vector), generally nk initial conditions are needed in order to trace the system's variables forward through time.
In both differential equations in continuous time and difference equations in discrete time, initial conditions affect the value of the dynamic variables (state variables) at any future time. In continuous time, the problem of finding a closed form solution for the state variables as a function of time and of the initial conditions is called the initial value problem. A corresponding problem exists for discrete time situations. While a closed form solution is not always possible to obtain, future values of a discrete time system can be found by iterating forward one time period per iteration, though rounding error may make this impractical over long horizons.
A linear matrix difference equation of the homogeneous (having no constant term) form has closed form solution predicated on the vector of initial conditions on the individual variables that are stacked into the vector; is called the vector of initial conditions or simply the initial condition, and contains nk pieces of information, n being the dimension of the vector X and k = 1 being the number of time lags in the system. The initial conditions in this linear system do not affect the qualitative nature of the future behavior of the state variable X; that behavior is stable or unstable based on the eigenvalues of the matrix A but not based on the initial conditions.
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