Based on the theoretical knowledge of elasticity, this paper introduces elasticity (i.e. elastic transformation) as a tool to solve differential equations for the first time, and takes a class of third-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations as an example. First, elastic transformation is used to reduce the order to second-order solvable differential equation. Second, by using the elastic inverse transformation, the analytical solutions of the original equation are obtained. Finally, the steps of the elastic reduction transformation method are summarized. The examples show that some nonlinear equations can be transferred into linear equations, and this method has theoretical and applied value which is extensive and in-depth.