A response to Tisdell on 'Critical perspectives of the 'new' difference equation solution method' of Rivera-Figueroa and Rivera-Rebolledo

摘要

Recently, Christopher C. Tisdell questions some claims and results that appear in our article [Rivera-Figueroa A, Rivera-Rebolledo JM. A new method to solve the second-order linear difference equations with constant coefficients. Int J Math Educ Sci Technol. 2016;47(4):636-649.] regarding the novelty and simplicity of a method to solve second-order linear difference equations. He argues that our method was not new because the method already appeared in the mathematical literature, neither was simpler than existing ones. After carefully analysing and comparing the references quoted by Tisdell, we confirm that our method differs from that quoted by Tisdell. Moreover, our approach is simpler because it avoids the uniqueness theorem and the method of variation of parameters, in this context, it offers some clear didactic and epistemological advantages.