Existence of positive solutions for a discrete three-point boundary value problem (Q2478355)

Summary: A discrete three-point boundary value problem \(\Delta ^{2}x_{k - 1}+\lambda f_{k}(x_{k})=0, k=1,2,\dots ,n,x_{0}=0, ax_{l}=x_{n+1}\), is considered, where \(1\leq l\leq n\) is a fixed integer, \(a\) is a real constant number, and \(\lambda \) is a positive parameter. A characterization of the values of \(\lambda \) is carried out so that the boundary value problem has the positive solutions. Particularly, in this paper the constant \(a\) can be negative numbers. The similar results are not valid for the three-point boundary value problem of differential equations.