Observations on a useful general nonlinear equation (Q1334706)

This paper deals with the general nonlinear equation of the form \(x'' + \alpha^{2m} x = \beta^ m x^{m + 1}\), subject to conditions \(x(0) = A\), \(x'(0) = 0\), where \(\alpha\), \(\beta\) and \(A\) are parameters which take on specific values for individual problems. Special cases of the above initial value problem, which are important in study of physical phenomena, are the anharmonic motion equation (\(m = 1\) and \(\beta = - \gamma\)) and Duffing's equation (\(m = 2\) and \(\alpha = \omega^{1/2}\)). The author discusses a qualitative behaviour of the solution of the general equation. It appears that after some transformation the behaviour of the solution is controlled by a single parameter. The solution may be trivial, bounded periodic, bounded nonperiodic, unbounded nonperiodic, or may not exist. To obtain approximations to the bounded periodic solution the author presents the improved multiple scales scheme developed previously in a paper written together with \textit{V. A. Nye} [Int. J. Math. Educ. Sci. Technol. 20, No. 3, 399-406 (1989; Zbl 0722.34031)].