Question

What does it mean for a differential equation to be autonomous?

Answer 1

The term "autonomous" refers to an ordinary differential equation that relates the derivatives of the dependent variable as a function *only* of the dependent variable. In other words, the ODE doesn't explicitly depend on the independent variable.

Examples:

$y'=y^2-1$ is autonomous

$y'=y^2-1+x$ is *not* autonomous