Some Limitations on the Accuracy of Electronic Differential Analyzers

Electronic differential analyzers, or simulators, employ computing elements which must be physically realizable electric circuits, and this fact introduces unavoidable errors into the differential-equation solutions. These errors are investigated mathematically for the general case of differential equations with constant coefficients. It is found that in certain cases an error of 1 per cent can be introduced by an adder bandwidth 2,000 times the highest frequency in the differential-equation solution.