Consider the ODE $y'=2\sqrt{|y|}$ where $y\in\Bbb R$. Find all solutions with initial conditions $y(0)=0$.
This is a homework question, so please just small hints...
The most obvious solution is $y(t)=0$. I was thinking that by Picard's Theorem, then this is, locally, the unique solution. But then I realized that $y(t)=t^2$ is another solution, if $t\ge0$ that satisfies the given initial condition. I have two questions:
- Why doesn't this contradict Picard's Theorem?
- Would I solve this ODE by, just, assuming $t\ge0$ then integrating both sides, then assuming $t\le0$ and integrating both sides? It seems that this technique should work since it looks like any solution which is defined on a neighborhood of 0 must vanish on some neighborhood of 0 (Picard's theorem seems to guarantee this, but please correct me if I am wrong).
1) It does not contradict the theorem because the function $f(y)=2\sqrt{\lvert y \rvert}$ is not locally Lipschitz. Otherwise, you would have $|f(y)-f(0)|=2\sqrt{\lvert y \rvert}\le L|y|$ for $|y|$ sufficiently small. But this is equivalent to $\lvert y \rvert\ge 4/L^2$ for $|y|$ sufficiently small.
2) What you describe is indeed the best approach. You should only check at the end that it gives you a $C^1$ function since solutions are supposed to be $C^1$.