Differential Equations

The most obvious improvements to Euler's and Euler-Cromer's algorithms, avoiding in addition the need for computing a second derivative, is the so-called midpoint method. We have then $$ \begin{equation} y^{(1)}_{n+1}=y^{(1)}_{n}+\frac{h}{2}\left(y^{(2)}_{n+1}+y^{(2)}_{n}\right)+O(h^2) \tag{26} \end{equation} $$ and $$ \begin{equation} y^{(2)}_{n+1}=y^{(2)}_{n}+h a_{n}+O(h^2), \tag{27} \end{equation} $$ yielding $$ \begin{equation} y^{(1)}_{n+1}=y^{(1)}_{n}+hy^{(2)}_{n}+\frac{h^2}{2}a_n+O(h^3) \tag{28} \end{equation} $$ implying that the local truncation error in the position is now \( O(h^3) \), whereas Euler's or Euler-Cromer's methods have a local error of \( O(h^2) \).