A Laplace transform is a mathematical operator that is used to solve differential equations. This operator is also used to transform waveform functions from the time domain to the frequency domain and can simplify the study of such functions. For continuous functions, f(t), the Laplace transform, F(s), is defined as the Integral from 0 to infinity of f(t)*e-stdt. When this definition is used it can be shown that the Laplace transform, Fn(s) of the nth derivative of a function, fn(t), is given by the following generic formula:

Thus, by taking the Laplace transform of an entire differential equation you can eliminate the derivatives of functions with respect to t in the equation replacing them with a Laplace transform operator, and simple initial condition constants, fn(0), times a new variable s raised to some power. In this manner the differential equation is transformed into an algebraic equation with an F(s) term. After solving this new algebraic equation for F(s) you can take the inverse Laplace transform of the entire equation. Since the inverse Laplace transform of F(s) is f(t) you are left with the solution to the original differential equation.