Morning everyone, I am doing some problem sheets for my class in Partial differential equations where we dont have an actual textbook. we are given a pack on notes. I am having an issue discerning what is meant by symmetry in the PDE's. We have first that: One of these eigenvalue problems is symmetric and the other isn't.
\begin{align} X'' - aX &= -\lambda X \quad \text{in } (0,\ell) \\ \text{with } X(0) &= X(\ell) = 0 \tag{1} \end{align}
\begin{align} X'' - aX' &= -\lambda X \quad \text{in } (0,\ell) \\ \text{with } X(0) &= X(\ell) = 0 \tag{2} \end{align}
My problem comes next, in the problems we are asked to show that the equation in $(1)$ is symmetric and that the one in $(2)$ is not. Firstly, I would like to know what symmetry is in the case of these types of equations and then how to show it. Thank you