Communications of the ACM

Solution of nonlinear two-point boundary-value problems is often an extremely difficult task. Quite apart from questions of reality and uniqueness, there is no established numerical technique for this problem. At present, shooting techniques are the easiest method of attacking these problems. When these fail, the more difficult method of finite differences can often be used to obtain a solution. This paper gives examples and discusses the finite difference method for nonlinear two-point boundary-value problems.