Penn Calc Wiki

1_Main_Introduction.pdf 2_Functions.pdf 2_TaylorSeries.pdf 3_TheExponential.pdf 4_ComputingTaylorSeries.pdf 5_Convergence.pdf 6_ExpansionPoints.pdf 7_Limits.pdf 9_LHopitalsRule.pdf 10_OrdersOfGrowth.pdf 11_Derivatives.pdf 12_DifferentiationRules.pdf 13_Linearization.pdf 14_HigherDerivatives.pdf 15_Optimization.
pdf 16_Differentials.pdf 17_DifferentiationAsAnOperator.pdf 18_Antidifferentiation.pdf 19_ExponentialGrowthExamples.pdf 20_MoreDifferentialEquations.pdf 21_ODELinearization.pdf 22_IntegrationBySubstitution.pdf 23_IntegrationByParts.pdf 24_PartialFractions.pdf 24_TrigonometricSubstitution.pdf 26_DefiniteIntegrals.pdf 27_FundamentalTheoremOfIntegral.pdf 28_ImproperIntegrals.pdf 29_TrigonometricIntegrals.pdf
30_TablesAndComputers.pdf 31_Main_SimpleAreas.pdf 32_ComplexAreas.pdf 33_Volumes.pdf 34_VolumesOfRevolution.pdf 35_VolumesInArbitraryDimension.pdf 36_Arclength.pdf 37_SurfaceArea.pdf 38_Work.pdf 39_Elements.pdf 40_Averages.pdf 41_CentroidsAndCentersOfMass.pdf 42_MomentsAndGyrations.pdf 43_FairProbability.pdf 44_ProbabilityDensities.pdf 45_ExpectationAndVariance.pdf 46_Sequences.pdf 47_Differences.pdf 48_DiscreteCalculus.pdf 49_NumericalODEs.pdf 50_NumericalIntegration.pdf 51_Series.pdf 52_ConvergenceTests1.pdf 53_ConvergenceTests2.pdf 54_AbsoluteAndConditional.pdf 55_PowerSeries.pdf 56_TaylorSeriesRedux.pdf 57_ApproximationAndError.pdf 58_Calculus.pdf
59_Foreshadowing.pdf
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Introduction What this wiki is

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This wiki encapsulates the M ath 104E calculus course at the University of Pennsylvania. 104E is a second semester calculus course presented for an engineering audience (hence the "E"). The goal of this wiki is to codify the content of this course in a way that is easily expandable or amendable as necessary, and to provide future teachers/students of the course with a lean, searchable text. The pages are in sequence (navigable from the home page or by using the arrows at the top and bottom of each page), and each page is designed to be a mini-lecture of about 10-15 minutes.
Prerequisites
This course assumes that you have had a first semester calculus course (such as AP Calculus AB or M ath 103 at Penn). You should be able to compute basic derivatives and integrals. Experience shows that some students may need to brush up on precalculus skills: factoring, exponent rules, logarithm rules, trigonometric functions and unit circle values, and graphing functions (among other things).
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Philosophy
This course focuses on the big picture over gritty calculations and memorized tricks. There will be some things you simply must commit to memory, but these will be few and highlighted in some way (yet to be determined). Also, a certain amount of practice is required to gain facility in the basic mechanics of calculus. For that, you should look to the big fat calculus text sold in the bookstore (at least until we have enough problems built into the wiki).
Outline
These are the big topics covered, and the number of lectures per topic: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Functions: 9 lectures Differentiation: 7 lectures Integration: 12 lectures Applications: 14 lectures Discrete Calculus: 13 lectures
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Functions
A function can be visualized as a machine that takes in an input and returns an output . The collection of all possible inputs is called the domain , and the collection of all possible outputs is called the range. This course deals with functions whose domains and ranges are notation for the real numbers). or subsets of (this is the
< Intr oduction | Home Page | The Exponential >
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Examples
1. Polynomials, e.g. 2. Trigonometric functions, e.g. Answer 3. The exponential function, , , . Give the domain and range of . Answer
. Give the domain and range for each of these.
. Give the domain and range for the exponential. Answer
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4. The natural logarithm function, . Recall that this is the inverse of the exponential function. Give the domain and range for . Answer 5. Is a function? If so, why? If not, is there a way to make it into a function? Answer
Operations on Functions
COMPOSITION
The composition of two functions, returns as its output fed into and . , is defined to be the function that takes as its input x and
Example: can be thought of as the composition of two functions, be the function that takes an input Example: Compute the composition Answer , i.e. the composition of with itself, where . and returns its square root. and . If , would
INVERSE
The inverse is the function that undoes function works both ways. If you plug . If you plug into into , you will get again. . Notice that this , you will get back
NOTE: Example:
denotes the inverse, not the reciprocal.
Lets consider
. Its inverse is
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Notice that the graphs of
and
are always going to be symmetric about the line
. That is
the line where the input and the output are the same:
Classes of Functions
POLYNOMIALS
A polynomial is a function of the form
The top power is called the degree of the polynomial. We can also write a polynomial using a summation notation.
RATIONAL FUNCTIONS
Rational functions are functions of the form Example: is a rational function. You have to be careful of the denominator. When the denominator takes a value of zero, the function may not be well-defined. where each is a polynomial.
POWERS
Power functions are functions of the form , where and are constant real numbers.
Other powers besides those of positive integers are useful. Example:
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What is What is What is What is
? Answer ? Answer ? Answer ? We are not yet equipped to handle this, but we will come back to it later.
TRIGONOMETRICS
You should be familiar with the basic trigonometric functions , . One fact to keep in mind is for any . This is known as a Pythagorean identity, which is so named because of one of the ways to prove it:
By looking at a right triangle with hypotenuse 1 and angle , and labeling the adjacent and opposite sides accordingly, one finds by using Pythagoras' Theorem that . Another way to think about it is to embed the above triangle into a diagram for the unit circle where we see that and returns the x and y coordinates, respectively, of a point on the unit circle with angle to the -axis:
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That explains the nature of the formula circle .
. It comes from the equation of the unit
Others trigonometric functions:
, the reciprocal of , the reciprocal of the
, the reciprocal of the All four of these have vertical asymptotes at the points where the denominator goes to zero.
INVERSE TRIGONOMETRICS
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We often write
to denote the inverse, but this can cause confusion. Be careful that is recommended for the inverse of the
. To avoid the confusion, the terminology function. The The The range function takes on values
and has a restricted domain , but it takes values
. .
function likewise has a restricted domain
function has an unbounded domain, it is well defined for all inputs. But it has a restricted .
EXPONENTIALS
Exponential functions are of the form , where is some positive constant. The most common such function, referred to as the exponential, is . This is the most common because of its nice integral and differential properties (below). Algebraic properties of the exponential function:
Differential/integral properties:
Recall the graph of
, plotted here alongside its inverse,
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Note that the graphs are symmetric about the line its inverse).
(as is true of the graphs of a function and
Before continuing, one might ask, what is ? There are several ways to define , which will be revealed soon. For now, it is an irrational number which is approximately 2.718281828.
Eulers Formula
To close this lesson, we give a wonderful formula, which for now we will just take as a fact: Euler's Formula
The
in the exponent is the imaginary number
. It has the properties
is not a real
number. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It just means it is not on a real number line.
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Euler's formula concerns the exponentiation of an imaginary variable. What exactly does that mean? How is this related to trigonometric functions? This will be covered in our next lesson.
Additional Examples
Example Find the domain of
Answer Example Find the domain of
Answer
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Taylor Series
The long polynomial from the last module is actually < The Exponential | Home Page | Computing Taylor ser ies > called a Taylor series about (this is referred to as a M aclaurin series in some textbooks, but this course will use the term Taylor series). The last module gave the Taylor series for , , and . The logical next question is to ask whether every function has a Taylor series. The answer is that most reasonable functions, and almost all of the functions encountered in this course, have a Taylor series. That is, every reasonable function can be written as
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This module describes how to compute the coefficients
for a given function
The definition of a Taylor series at x=0

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The definition of the Taylor series of Taylor series at
at
is
where coefficient
is the
th derivative of
evaluated at 0. In other words, the
mentioned above is given by
This seems circular, since the definition uses the function, and its derivatives, to write down the function. However, the definition only actually requires information about the function at a single point (in this case, 0). It is best to think of the Taylor series as a way of turning a function into a polynomial. Example Compute the Taylor series for series from the last module. Answer Example Compute the Taylor series for matches the series found using Euler's formula. Answer Example Compute the Taylor series for . Answer using the above definition to see that it matches the given
using the above definition, and verify it
Why Taylor series matter

The big idea of this module is that the Taylor series can be thought of as an operator (a machine) which turns a function into a series. This is a useful operator because some functions are hard (or even impossible) to express using combinations of familiar functions. Nevertheless, these functions can often be understood by computing their Taylor series. Example The Bessel function , denoted , is best defined by its Taylor series:
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This series has only the even powers of , and it alternates, which is reminiscent of the series for cosine. One difference is that the denominator in the Bessel function grows more quickly than the denominator in the series for cosine. Thus, we might expect the graph to be a wave with a decreasing amplitude, which is exactly what we find:
It turns out that the Bessel function describes many physical phenomena, including the shape of a hanging chain as it is rotated, and the shape of the waves formed after a stone is thrown into a pool of water.
Taylor series as polynomial approximants

The main reason Taylor series are useful is that they turn a potentially complicated function into something simple: a polynomial. Granted, this polynomial is infinitely long in general, but in practice it is only necessary to compute the first few terms to get a good, local approximation of the function.
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The more terms one includes, the better the polynomial approximates the function. As an example, consider a particle on the number line with position function position is 5. Then one approximation of its position as a function of time is . At time 0, say its . Given more
information, say its velocity at time 0 is 3, the approximation becomes better. The next approximation as a function of time is . Now, suppose its acceleration at time 0 is . Then is an even better polynomial approximation of the position function.
< The Exponential | Home Page | Computing Taylor ser ies >
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The Exponential
This module deals with a very important function: the exponential. < Functions | Home Page | Taylor ser ies > The first question one might ask is: what is the exponential function ? We know certain values of the function such as , but what about an irrational input such as , or an imaginary input ? Is it possible to make sense of these values? The following definition answers these questions. The Exponential
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where
and
One can now plug values for into the above sum to compute . When , for instance, one finds that , (since all the terms with disappear) as expected. By plugging in , the true value of is found to be .
A long polynomial
There are technical concerns when trying to add up an infinite number of things. These issues will be dealt with later in the modules on series. For now, treat the infinite sum above as a long polynomial (the actual term is the Taylor series about , which will be more formally dealt with in the next module). Polynomials are nice because they are easy to integrate and differentiate. Recall the power rule for differentiating and integrating a monomial , where is a constant:
Properties of
Recall the following properties of the exponential function: 1. 2. 3. 4. .
Consider the last two properties in terms of the long polynomial.Taking the derivative of the long polynomial for gives
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which is the original long polynomial. Integrating also gives (up to the constant of integration) the original long polynomial. This agrees with facts about the derivative and integral of . Thus, the long polynomial for captures two of the key features of ; namely, is its own derivative and its own integral.
Euler's formula
Recall that the imaginary number is defined by . So , , , and this continues cyclically (for a review of complex/imaginary numbers, see wikipedia). Assume the following fact, known as Euler's formula, mentioned in the last module. Euler's formula
Consider what happens when is plugged into the long polynomial for of , and grouping the result into its real and imaginary parts, one finds
. By simplifying the powers
If this is supposed to equal must be . It follows that
, then the real part must be
, and the imaginary part
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These formulas should be memorized, both in their long polynomial form and their more concise summation notation form. Example Use Euler's formula to show that Example Compute Example Check that taking the derivative of the long polynomial for (hence, verify that ). Answer Example Show that the long polynomial for satisfies the first property above, namely . Hint: start with the long polynomials for and and multiply these together, and carefully collect like terms to show it equals the long polynomial for . Answer gives the long polynomial for . Answer . Answer
More on the long polynomial

The idea of a long polynomial is reasonable, because it actually comes from taking a sequence of polynomials with higher and higher degree:
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Each polynomial in the sequence is, in a sense, the best approximation possible of that degree. Put another way, taking the first several terms of the long polynomial gives a good polynomial approximation of the function. The more terms included, the better the approximation. This is how calculators compute the exponential function (without having to add up infinitely many things).
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< Functions | Home Page | Taylor ser ies >
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Computing Taylor Series

The previous module gave the definition of the Taylor series for < Taylor ser ies | Home Page | Conver gence > an arbitrary function. It turns out that this is not always the easiest way to compute a function's Taylor series. Just as functions can be added, subtracted, multiplied, and composed, so can their corresponding Taylor series. Recall that the Taylor series for a function is given by
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Using the definition of the Taylor series involves taking a lot of derivatives, which could be a lot of work, especially if the function involves compositions and products of functions, e.g. . This module will show how to compute the Taylor series of such functions more easily by using the Taylor series for functions we already know.
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Substitution
Our first method, substitution, allows us to plug one function into the Taylor series of another. Consider the function Computing the Taylor series for from the definition would involve the quotient rule, chain rule, and a lot of algebra. But by taking the series for and substituting into this series, and then distributing the , one finds
Note that getting this many terms using the definition would involve taking nine derivatives of the original function, which would be a lot of work! To get a more complete description of the Taylor series, one can use the summation notation, and again substitute to find
Example Find the Taylor series for
by substitution. Answer
Combining like terms

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Another way to use previous knowledge of one Taylor series to find another is by combining like terms. This requires some careful algebra, but it is no more difficult than multiplying two polynomials together. For example, consider the function
Finding the series for a function multiplied by another function is the same as taking the series for each function and multiplying them together, and then collecting like terms. This is where some algebra is required.
To see where the coefficient of comes from, note that every term comes from some term from the left series multiplied together with some term from the right series whose powers add up to 4. There are three such pairs: 1 on the left paired with on the right; on the left paired with on the right; and on the left paired with 1 on the right. This is the same algebra one would do when multiplying two polynomials together; this is just a way of collecting like terms in a systematic way. Example Use the trigonometric identity
and substitution to find the series for the first term). Answer
. Try to give the series in summation notation (other than
Hyperbolic trigonometric functions

The hyperbolic trigonometric functions , , and are defined by
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These hyperbolic trig functions, although graphically quite different from their traditional counterparts, have several similar algebraic properties, which is why they are so named. For example, the Pythagorean identity for cosine and sine has a version for hyperbolic cosine and sine:
One can verify this using the definitions and some algebra. But there is a geometric intuition for this relationship. Recall that cosine and sine give the and coordinates, respectively, for a point on the unit circle . The hyperbolic cosine and hyperbolic sine give the and coordinates, respectively, for points on the hyperbola :
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Example Using the Taylor series for are
and substitution, show that the Taylor series for
and
Note that these are almost the same as the series for cosine and sine, respectively, except they do not alternate. This gives another reason for the names of these functions. Answer
Manipulating Taylor series

Another way of using one Taylor series to find another is through differentiation and integration. For
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instance, to find the Taylor series for the derivative of term by term. Example By differentiating the Taylor series for
, one can differentiate the Taylor series for
and
, show that
This is yet another relationship which is similar (though not identical) to the relationship between sine and cosine. Answer
Higher Order Terms in Taylor Series

In some situations, it will be convenient only to write the first few terms of a Taylor series. This is particularly true when combining or composing more than one Taylor series. Up until now, an ellipsis has been used to indicate that there are more terms in the series that are being omitted. There is another way, sometimes used in this course, of notating the omitted terms in a Taylor series. That is by referring to them as Higher Order Terms (or H.O.T. for short). Having the extra HOT in a series means that all the remaining terms in the series have a higher degree than the previous terms. Example The function can be written as
or it could also be written as
The point at which the higher order terms are cut-off is somewhat arbitrary and depends on the situation. There is a more formal way of keeping track of the higher order terms, called Big-O notation, which is presented in orders of growth. Example Find the first two non-zero terms of the Taylor series for
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Answer
Extra examples
Example Compute the Taylor series (at 0) for up to and including terms of order 6. Try to give the full Taylor series in summation notation. Answer Example Find the first three terms of the Taylor series for , where Answer
< Taylor ser ies | Home Page | Conver gence >
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Convergence
A Taylor series can be thought of as an infinite < Computing Taylor ser ies | Home Page | Expansion points > polynomial. Up until now, we have not worried about the issues that come up when adding up infinitely many things. This module deals with two main issues: 1. A function may not have a Taylor series at all; 2. A function's Taylor series may not converge everywhere, even within the function's domain.
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Functions without a Taylor series

The first problem is that some functions cannot be expressed in the form
Examples include
, which has vertical asymptotes, and
, which is not defined for
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Polynomials are not able to capture these sorts of discontinuities and asymptotes.
THE GEOMETRIC SERIES

The geometric series is an example of a Taylor series which is well behaved for some values of non-nonsensical for other values of . The claim is that and
for
Justification Example Compute the Taylor series for Answer Note The geometric series only holds when . This makes sense, because if , the directly from the definition.
powers of are getting bigger and bigger and so the series should not converge. If , then the series is adding 1 infinitely many times, which diverges. If , then the series oscillates between 1 and 0, and hence does not converge. The takeaway is that every Taylor series has a convergence domain where the series is well-behaved, and outside that domain the series will not converge. For many functions, the domain is the whole real number line (e.g. the series for , , , , and all converge everywhere), but be aware that there are functions whose Taylor series do not converge everywhere. This will be covered more formally in Series Convergence And Divergence. Example A beam of light of intensity hits a pane of glass. Half of the light is reflected, and a third of the light is transmitted; the rest is absorbed. When a beam of light of intensity hits two parallel panes with an air gap between them, how much light is transmitted through both panes? (The following figure shows how the light gets reflected and rereflected. The first transmitted and reflected beams of light are labeled with their respective intensities. The question asks for the total of the beams of light emerging on the right side of the right pane of glass).
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Answer Example Use the Taylor series of . Answer Example Use the fact that to derive the Taylor series of . Hint: recall that
to find the Taylor series for
. Answer , where is some constant.
Example Another important function is the binomial series
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Show that
where This series also only holds for Answer .
Summary
Here are all the series we have found so far. The following hold for all :
The following hold for
:
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Electrostatics example
Here we use the geometric series and the binomial series from above in an example from electrostatics. An electric dipole is a pair of equally and oppositely charged particles separated by a short distance. One question of interest in electrostatics is the electrostatic potential, which is the sum of the point charge potentials from each pole. The point charge potential from a single particle with charge , at a distance from the particle, is
where is a constant called the Coulomb constant. Then a dipole with particles of charge has net electrostatic potential
and
where
is the distance to the positively charged particle, and
is the distance to the negatively
charged particle:
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We will calculate the first order term for the electrostatic potential at two different locations: :
and
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First consider , located directly above and distance from the positive particle. Let be the distance between the charged particles. Then , and by the Pythagorean theorem, . It follows that the electrostatic potential is
Now, factoring out
, and applying the binomial series with
, we find
At position and
, which is directly left of and distance
from the positive particle, we have is
, so we find that the electrostatic potential at
Again, factoring out
and expanding using the geometric series gives
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< Computing Taylor ser ies | Home Page | Expansion points >
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Expansion Points
Up until now, Taylor series expansions have all been at . The Taylor series at gives a good approximation to the function near 0. But what if we want a good approximation to the function near a different point ? That is the topic of this module.
< Conver gence | Home Page | Limits >
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Expansion points
A function has a Taylor series expansion about any point derivatives exist at . The definition of the Taylor series for provided that about is and all its
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We say this is a series in variables
. A different way to view this series is by making the change of
. After cancellation, this yields
Taylor polynomial for approximation

Recall that the first few terms of the Taylor series for about gives a polynomial (the Taylor polynomial) which is a good approximation for near 0. Similarly, the Taylor polynomial for about gives a polynomial which is a good approximation of near . Note, however, that as the input gets further away from the expansion point , the approximation gets worse. Example Find the Taylor series for Example Compute the Taylor series expansion for about about . Answer . Answer
Note that the Taylor polynomial is only a good approximation to the function on the domain of convergence. For functions whose domain of convergence is the entire number line, this is not a concern. But for functions such as , the Taylor polynomials will only be a good approximation within the domain of convergence, which is . Outside of that domain, the Taylor polynomials diverge wildly from , as shown here:
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Even within a function's domain of convergence, a Taylor polynomial's approximation gets worse as the input gets further away from . One way to improve an approximation is to include more and more terms of the Taylor series in the Taylor polynomial. However, this involves computing more and more derivatives. Another way to improve the approximation for is to choose an expansion point which is close to . about to approximate .
Example Use the Taylor polynomial of degree 2 for Then repeat the process about
and compare the results. Answer
Caveat for compositions

When computing the Taylor expansion for the composition about at , one must be careful and plug it into of expansion points. In particular, one cannot simply take the series for the series for at . Example Consider the expansion for about . Although
, and
, one will run into trouble trying to write
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The trouble is that collecting like terms requires adding up infinitely many things. For instance, the constant term above is . The reason this is a problem is that Taylor series are supposed to give a good polynomial approximation of a function without requiring too much computation or information about the function. Remember that is near 0, good approximation. To avoid this problem when computing the Taylor series for the composition should plug the Taylor expansion of above example, the expansion of about about is so into the expansion of about at , one . In the is a good approximation when is near 1. So plugging the series for is near 0. However, when does not give a
into the series for
< Conver gence | Home Page | Limits >
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Limits
Having concluded our study of Taylor series, we now move on to limits. Some of the major topics of calculus (continuity, differentiation, and integration) can all be expressed using limits.
< Expansion points | Home Page | L'Hopital's Rule >
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Definition of the limit

The limit formalizes the behavior of a function as its input approaches some value. The formal definition of the limit is Limit if and only if for every whenever not exist. there exists such that , then the limit does
. If there is no such
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In words, this says that the limit of a function exists if, when the input to is very close to (but not equal to ), the output from is very close to . This can also be thought of in terms of tolerances: given a certain tolerance for the output (seen as the band around in the graph below), one can find a tolerance on the input (the band around ) so that for inputs within the tolerance, the corresponding outputs stays within of the desired output:
No matter how small is made, there must be some finding often requires a little bit of work. Example Using the definition of the limit, show that
, which must depend on , generally. Actually
. Answer
When limits may not exist

There are a few ways a limit might not exist: 1. A discontinuity, or jump, in the graph of the function. In this case, the limit does not exist because the limit from the left and the limit from the right are not equal.
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2. A blow-up, when the function has a vertical asymptote. 3. An oscillation , where the graph of the function oscillates infinitely up and down as the input approaches a certain value.
M ost functions in this course will be well-behaved and will not have the above problems. The formal term for a well-behaved function is continuous.
Continuous functions
A function is continuous at the point if the limit exists and at . . Intuitively, this says that there are no holes or jumps in the graph of
Finally, a function is continuous if it is continuous at every point in its domain.
Rules for limits

There are rules for adding, multiplying, dividing, and composing limits. Suppose that exist. Then 1. (Sum) 2. (Product) . . and
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3. (Quotient) 4. (Chain)
, provided that , if is continuous.
Almost all the functions encountered in this course are continuous, and so limits in most cases can be evaluated by simply plugging in the limiting input value into the function. The one case that sometimes gets complicated is the Quotient rule above when the limit of the denominator is 0. Example Show that . Answer
Example Find
. Answer
Example Compute
. Answer
Example Compute
. Answer
There are other methods for computing these types of limits, including memorization, algebraic tricks, and l'Hopital's rule (more on that in the next module). However, in many cases, these different methods can all be replaced by a simple application of Taylor series.
< Expansion points | Home Page | L'Hopital's Rule >
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L Hopitals Rule
In previous modules, we saw that Taylor series are useful for < Limits | Home Page | Or der s of gr owth > computing certain limits of ratios. But sometimes, a fact known as L'Hopital's rule is easier to use than Taylor series. While L'Hopital's rule is commonly taught in a first calculus course, the justification for why it works is not usually taught. This module gives a justification for L'Hopital's rule, using Taylor series.
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L'Hopital's rule
There are some limit situations where Taylor series are not particularly easy to use. For example, if the limit is being taken at a point about which the Taylor expansion is not already known, or the limit is at infinity, then using Taylor series is usually more work than it is worth. These are the situations where L'Hopital's rule can be helpful. L'Hopital's Rule, case
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If
and
are continuous functions such that
and
then
, provided this limit exists. If this is still of the form ,
then derivatives may be taken again, and so on. Justification Example Using L'Hopital's rule, compute two of the limits from the last module:
Answer Example Compute . Answer
Depending on the situation, it still might be easier to use Taylor series, especially if there are compositions and products of functions (assuming we know all the relevant Taylor series). Example Compute . Answer
L'Hopital's Rule, If this limit exists.
case , then , again provided
Example Compute
. Answer
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Example Use L'Hopital's rule to compute
. Answer
Other indeterminate forms

Some limits do not initially look like cases where L'Hopital's rule applies, but with some algebra they can be rearranged into one of the applicable cases. These are called indeterminate forms.
CASE:
First, consider , where . Usually, one or both of
and are ratios of other functions. In this case, getting a common denominator usually transforms the limit into one where L'Hospital's rule or a Taylor series approach applies. Example Compute . Answer
CASE:
Next, consider where and . Since is not
defined, it is not clear what this limit is. However, the product can be turned into one of the following ratios where L'Hopital's rule applies:
since dividing by the reciprocal of a number is the same as multiplying. Now, note that , since rule. Similarly, is in the form of l'Hopital's rule, and so it can be applied here too. . Thus, is now in the case of L'Hopital's
Deciding which of the above forms to use depends on the situation, but in many situations either form will work.
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Example Compute
. (Here we use the one-sided limit
becuase
is only defined
on the positive real numbers). Answer
CASE:
Another indeterminate form arises when raising one function of function of . Suppose and to a power which involves another ? . Then what is
On the one hand, it seems that raising to any power should be . On the other hand, raising anything to the 0th power should be 1. To find what the answer actually is, let
and take the of both sides. Now, recall that is a continuous function. Therefore, from the rules of limits in the last module, taking of a limit is the same as the limit of the :
(the last step uses the fact that answer must be exponentiated to find Example Compute . Answer
). Now, this is of the form , the original limit.
, which was
covered above. Note that when this limit is computed, it is
which has been found, and so the
CASE:
Consider the limit , where and . Because is not defined, , computing
this is another indeterminate form. It can be dealt with as the the resulting limit, and then exponentiating. Example Compute . Answer
case, by first taking
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Limits going to infinity

L'Hopital also works with limits going to infinity; the same hypothesis and conclusions hold. Before doing some examples, what does it mean for ?
Limit at infinity if and only if for every whenever there exists such that , then the limit does not exist.
. If there is no such
Example Compute
. Answer
Example Compute
. Answer
While L'Hopital often works, there are situations where it fails to give an answer, and a little extra thought must be employed. Example Compute Example Compute . Answer . Answer
It is also possible to deal with limits going to infinity using Taylor series, but it involves some algebra. The idea is to use a substitution to turn the limit going to infinity into a limit going to zero. Symbolically, if , then let . It follows that as , and by replacing with throughout, the limit is transformed.
This process works when the limit at 0 exists. A more general technique would only look at the onesided limit from the right-hand side:
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Example Compute
. Answer
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Orders Of Growth
When dealing with limits as , it is the lowest order term < L'Hopital's Rule | Home Page | Der ivatives > (i.e. the term with the smallest power) which matters the most, since higher powers of are very small when is close to 0. On the other hand, as , what is known as the asymptotic growth of a function. In this case, it is the highest order term which matters the most. This module deals with limits of both types and provides a more formal notion of how quickly a function grows or shrinks.
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Hierarchy of functions going to infinity

First, consider the monomial , where monomials, it becomes clear that as is a fixed, positive integer. Looking at the graphs of these , :
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What happens when the functions involved are not polynomials? For example, how does the growth of the exponential compare to a polynomial? Or factorial and exponential? In general, one can compare the asymptotic growth of the functions . If this limit is is a constant, then Example Compare exponential growth and polynomial growth. Answer Example Compare the asymptotic behavior of Example Compare the asymptotic growth of the factorial and the exponential. Answer Thus we have the following hierarchy of growth, from greatest to smallest: (for some fixed integer ) and . Answer and , then and by considering the limit dominates. And if the limit
dominates. If the limit is 0, then
are considered equal (asymptotically).
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1. Factorial: 2. Exponential: 3. Polynomial: 4. Logarithmic: for any for any (usually . ).
and other related functions.
When a pair of functions are of a similar type, such as limit of the ratio of the functions, as above.
and
, one must compare these using the
Hierarchy of functions going to 0

As above, first consider monomials . As , the inequality for monomials is the reverse of what it was for . That is, as , we find that . Intuitively, small numbers become even smaller when you raise them to higher powers. It is important to keep track of whether a limit is going to 0 or , since in the first case, the lowest order terms dominate, and in the second case the highest order terms dominate. Example Compute and . Answer
Big-O notation
When dealing with limits as or , it is best to have a formal notation for the
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approximations which result from dropping higher or lower order terms. Big-O notation, pronounced "big oh", provides this formality. Big-O notation, The function is in , as if
for some constant and all sufficiently close to 0. Put another way, a function is in , for close to 0, if approaches 0 at least as fast as a constant multiple of . is in , as if
M ore generally, a function
for some constant
and
sufficiently close to 0.
Big-O notation, as , can be thought of as a more specific way of saying higher order terms. Just as Taylor series could include a different number of terms before indicating the rest is higher order terms (depending on the situation), the same is true for big-O. Example Express using big-O notation as . Answer
The definition for big-O as sufficiently large. Big-O notation, The function is in
is almost identical, except the bound needs to apply for all
, as
if
for some constant , as
and all , if
sufficiently large. In other words, a function
is in
approaches infinity no faster than a constant multiple of
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. M ore generally, is in , as if
for some constant Example The monomial is in
and all
sufficiently large.
as
for any (fixed) .
. This is a restatement of the above fact
that the exponential dominates polynomials as Example Show that Answer Example Justify the following statements as 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Answer Example Justify the following statements as 1. 2. 3. 4. is in is in is in is in as well as but is not in but is not in but is not in . for any : for any . is not in is in is in is in is in is in for all for any . but is not in but is not in . but is not in but is not in . . . : . as
. Hint: use the binomial series.
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5. 6. Answer is in
is in
as well as for all .
for all
Application: Error Analysis

When approximating a function by the first few terms of its Taylor series, there is a trade-off between convenience (the ease of the computation) and accuracy. Big-O notation can help keep track of this error. Example Consider the approximation, for close to 0,
So the error of approximating small. Determining a good Remainder Theorem.
can be bounded by
, for some
when
is
, in general, is tricky, and there is more on error bounds in Taylor
Application: Computational Complexity

In computer science, an algorithm is a sequence of steps used to solve a problem. For example, there are algorithms to sort a list of numbers and algorithms to find the prime factorization of a number. Computational complexity is a measure of how efficient an algorithm is. Basically, a computer scientist wants to know roughly how the number of computations carried out by the computer will grow as the input (e.g. the length of the list to be sorted, or the size of the number to be factored) gets larger.
EXAMPLE: MULTIPLICATION
Consider how much work is required to multiply two -digit numbers using the usual grade-school method. There are two phases to working out the product: multiplication and addition. First, multiply the first number by each of the digits of the second number. For each digit in the second number this requires basic operations (multiplication of single digits) plus perhaps some "carries", so say a total of operations for each digit in the second number. This means that the
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multiplication phase requires
basic operations.
The addition phase requires repeatedly adding digit numbers together a total of times. If each addition requires at most operations (including the carries), and there are additions that must be made, it comes to a total of operations in the addition phase. Adding these totals up gives about total operations. Thus, the total number of basic operations that must be performed in multiplying two digit numbers is in (since the constant coefficient does not matter). The reason the constant coefficient does not really matter when thinking about computational complexity, is that a faster computer can only improve the speed of a computation by a constant factor. The only way to significantly improve a computation is to somehow drastically cut the number of operations required to perform the operation. The next example shows an example of how important algorithmic improvements can be on computational complexity.
EXAMPLE: SORTING
In sorting algorithms, the most basic operation is the comparison. For a sorting algorithm, one wants to know how many comparisons of two numbers will be made, on average. One common sorting algorithm, which is used by most people who are sorting items by hand, is called Insertion Sort. It turns out that the number of comparisons for Insertion Sort, on average, is as , where is the length of the list of numbers to be sorted. comparisons on average.
A more sophisticated sorting algorithm, called M ergesort, uses
This may not seem like a significant improvement over Insertion Sort, but consider the number of comparisons used to sort a list of 1000000 integers: Insertion Sort would use on the order of comparisons on average, where as M ergesort uses on the order of comparisons. To put that in perspective, if M ergesort took a half second to complete the computation, Insertion Sort would take over ten hours!
Big O in Other Areas of Mathematics

STIRLING'S FORMULA
Stirling's formula gives an asymptotic approximation for :
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In a slightly more precise form, it can be written
PRIME NUMBER THEOREM

In number theory, one very important function, or equal to . The Prime Number Theorem says that , is defined to be the number of primes less than
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Multi Variable
Derivatives
There are several definitions of the derivative of a function at . These definitions are all equivalent, but they are all important because they emphasize different aspects of the derivative. Derivative (first definition)
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If the limit does not exist, then the derivative is not defined at
This first definition emphasizes that the derivative is the rate of change of the output with respect to the input. The next definition is similar.
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Derivative (second definition)
If the limit does not exist, then the derivative is not defined at
This definition can be interpreted as the change in output divided by the change in input, as the change in input goes to 0. One can see this is equivalent to the first definition by making the substitution . The third definition looks quite different from the first two. Derivative (third definition) The derivative of variation to the input at , , is the constant such that for any
, the following holds.
That is,
is the first-order variation of the output. If no such
exists, then the
derivative does not exist. To show the equivalence, one can do a little algebra to see that
Then taking the limit on both sides as
shows that
. , where
Example Using the second and third definitions above, compute the derivative of is a positive integer. Answer Example Find the derivative of Example Find the derivative of using the third definition. Answer using the third definition. Hint: use the identity Answer
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Example Find the derivative of
using the third definition. Answer
Notation
There are several different notations for the derivative of . The best options are
because they make it clear that the input is
and the output is
or
, respectively.
The next tier of options are fair, and have the advantage of requiring less writing, but they lose the benefit of knowing what the input variable is:
The third option,
, is known as differential notation, which will be covered more in a later module.
Do not try to cancel the d's in the derivative. Do not write the d's in cursive, or replace the d's with 's (those notations have a different meaning).
Interpretations
The derivative is commonly interpreted as the slope of the tangent line to the graph of the function. This is fine when the function has one input and one output. But what happens in the (more realistic) situation of a function with more than one input and more than one output? How does one graph such a function? And if the units of the input and output are different, what is the unit of slope? A better interpretation for the derivative is as the rate of change of output with respect to input. This interpretation makes sense with functions of many inputs and outputs. However, that will be covered in the multivariable sequel to this course.
Examples with respect to time

The most common use of the derivative is with respect to time. Here are several such examples from different areas.
PHYSICS
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Velocity
is the derivative of position
, with respect to time. Similarly, acceleration
is the
derivative of velocity with respect to time:
ELECTROMAGNETISM
Electric current, , in a circuit is the rate of change of charge, , with respect to time:
CHEMISTRY
The reaction rate for the product of change of the concentration of , denoted , denoted , in a chemical reaction is proportional to the rate , with respect to time:
Examples with respect to other variables

SPRING CONSTANT
The spring constant for a spring is the derivative of force with respect to deflection:
ELASTICITY
The elasticity modulus of a material is the rate of change of stress with respect to strain:
VISCOSITY
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The viscosity of a fluid
is related to the shear stress by the equation
TAX RATES
The marginal tax rate is the rate of change of tax with respect to income:
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Differentiation Rules
Recall from the previous module the third definition given of the derivative, that
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The derivative can be thought of as a multiplier: a change of to the input gets amplified by a factor of to become a change of to the output. This interpretation helps make sense of the following rules.
Differentiation rules
Suppose and are differentiable functions of shorthand differential notation) hold: . Then the following rules (written using the
LINEARITY
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where
is a constant.
PRODUCT
CHAIN
Proof Another common way to express the Chain rule, using the more traditional derivative notation, is
CAVEAT
Note that in the chain rule, the output of is being plugged in as an input to . Therefore, in the above, if the derivative is being evaluated at , then is evaluated at and is evaluated at . M ore explicitly,
Example Compute
. Answer
Other rules
There are a few other differentiation rules commonly taught in a first year calculus class, which can all be proven using the rules from above.
RECIPROCAL
QUOTIENT
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INVERSE
Note: Proof
is the inverse of
, not the reciprocal (which was covered above).
Example Show that
using the reciprocal rule. Answer Example Show that
using the quotient rule. Answer Example Show that
using the inverse derivative rule. Answer
Bonus
There are operators in other areas of mathematics which act similarly to the derivative. Finding such similarities in disparate fields is useful, because theorems from one field can often be carried over to the other and proved using similar techniques. These connections give a deeper understanding of both fields.
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BOUNDARY OF SPACES
Consider the boundary of a space. Loosely speaking, the boundary of a space is its outline, border, or edge. Think of the boundary as an operator, denoted :
It turns out the the boundary operator acts similarly to a derivative. In particular, there is a product rule for . But first, we need a notion of product for spaces. The Cartesian product of two spaces where and and , denoted , is the set of ordered pairs
. This can be visualized by taking the first space and extruding it along the
second space (easiest to visualize if the second space is a line segment), as in the following examples:
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So the Cartesian product of two line segments is a filled in rectangle, and the Cartesian product of a disc and a line segment is a solid cylinder. Now, consider the boundaries of these regions. The boundary of the filled in rectangle is its border, which can be thought of as the two vertical edges and the horizontal top and bottom edges. Note that this can be expressed as the boundary of the first segment times the second segment union the first segment times the boundary of the second segment:
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Similarly, for the solid cylinder, the boundary is the union of the lateral area and the end caps. The lateral area is the Cartesian product of the circle with the line segment, which is the boundary of the disc times the line segment. The other piece (the end caps) is the disc times two points, which is the disc times the boundary of the line segment:
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These examples suggest the (true) fact that for two spaces
and
, one has
Thinking of the boundary operator as the derivative, exactly like the product rule for functions given above.
as multiplication, and
as addition, this is
LISTS
Consider a list of five distinct objects, all labeled with . We might symbolize this by . Now, consider the deletion operator which deletes an object from the list. There are five different lists that might result (depending on which object was deleted), and this would logically be symbolized by :
There is an entire calculus for lists. As one final example, how would we symbolize the empty list? It has zero elements, so logically it should be expressed as . Now, let denote the set of all finite lists. Note that any list is either empty or has a first element. Translating this into an equation gives
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Rearranging and solving for
gives
the geometric series! This makes intuitive sense, because any list is either the empty list, or the list of length 1, or the list of length 2, etc.
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Multi Variable
Linearization
One of the main uses of the derivative is linearization , < Differ entiation r ules | Home Page | Higher der ivatives > which uses the first two terms (the constant and linear term) of the Taylor series as an approximation. In many applications, this gives a very good approximation, as we will see in some examples.
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Linear variation visualized

There are several geometric examples where it is possible to see the linear variation as the change in area as a parameter is changed by a small amount.
SQUARE
The area of a square of side length , the result is is given by . When that is varied by a small amount
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The linear variation is , which can be seen in the diagram as the rectangles along the right and top edges of the square. There are two of them, each with area . The final bit of area, the purple square in the diagram, has area , which is higher order.
TRIANGLE
The area of a right triangle with legs length is is . When the leg is varied by , the result
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Visually, the linear variation comes from the red parallelogram, of base and height , running along the hypotenuse. The higher order term comes from the small purple triangle at the tip of the triangle.
DISC
The area of a disc of radius is . If the radius is increased by , the result is
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Visually breaking this into the linear variation and higher order variation is a little bit harder. The best way is to imagine taking the ring formed by the increased radius and breaking it into rectangles and wedges. In the limit, the wedges can be rearranged into a disc of radius , and the rectangles can be arranged to form a strip of length (the circumference of the inner circle) and width .
Linear approximation
The equation underlying any linear approximation should be familiar, since it is just the first order Taylor series about , after making the substitution :
This will be a good linear approximation provided that is small, i.e., the point is close to the input we are trying to approximate. In general, one wants to pick to be an input where it is easy to compute and which is as close to the desired input as possible. Example Using a linear approximation, estimate Example . Answer
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Using a linear approximation, estimate Answer Example Approximate Example Approximate . Hint: , and . Hint: . Answer
. Is this an over-approximation or an under-approximation?
. Answer
Newton's method
Another application of linearization gives a way of approximating the root of a function. This is called Newton's method. Given a continuous, differentiable function ). Suppose , the goal is to find a root (i.e. a value such that
is an initial guess of a root. Then
will be a root for some small value of
. Linearizing, and ignoring the higher order terms, gives
Since we supposed that
was a root of gives
, it follows that
. Therefore, setting
the above equal to 0 and solving for
Thus, an even closer guess of a root is
By taking this new guess of a root, and repeating the above process, one (hopefully) gets a better and better approximation of a root. M ore formally, this is what is called a difference equation . Given an initial guess, called the function, one uses the update rule , of a root of
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to get
, and then
, and so on. . Graphically, what is happening is as
The resulting sequence hopefully converges to a root of follows: 1. Pick a guess . 2. Find the tangent line to
through the point
. -axis.
3. Let be the point where the tangent line intersects the 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 (see the figure).
CAVEAT
This sequence is only defined if exists and is non-zero for every in the sequence. Even if the sequence is defined, it may not converge to anything. But if the sequence is defined and it does converge, say to , then is a root of .
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Example Find the update rule for approximating , the reciprocal of a number Example Find the update rule for using Newton's method to approximate initial guess Example Find the update rule for finding estimate . Answer
< Differ entiation r ules | Home Page | Higher der ivatives >
. Answer
. Use the update rule twice with
to estimate
. Answer
. Use the update rule once with the initial guess of
to
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Higher Derivatives
The th derivative of a function , is defined recursively by , denoted or
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In other words, the th derivative is what one gets by taking the derivative times. Note that in the notation, the power goes to the right of , to emphasize the fact that the th derivative of is achieved by iterating times the operator . So
Interpretations
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Let body is
denote the position of a moving body as a function of time. Then the velocity
of the
The acceleration of an object is the second derivative of its position function (i.e. the derivative of its velocity):
The jerk of an object is the third derivative of its position function (i.e. the derivative of its acceleration):
The snap (or jounce) of an object is the fourth derivative of its position:
QUADROTORS
The maneuverability of nano quadrotors depends on controlling both the jerk and the snap (in addition to velocity and acceleration).
CURVATURE
In geometry, curvature can (informally) be thought of as how quickly the graph of the function curves. Consider the largest circle that can comfortably sit tangent to the graph of at the point . Intuitively, the larger the radius of the circle that fits, the smaller the curvature. Here is a curve with several of these circles (called osculating circles) drawn it at different indicated points.
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In fact, the curvature of a curve
, denoted
, is defined by
, where
is the radius of the
largest circle which fits the curve to second order. With some algebra, one finds the following expression for curvature in terms of the first and second derivatives of : Curvature of a function
Justification Note that for a straight line, the second derivative In this case, the osculating circle is infinite. Similarly, , and so , which matches intuition. .
at inflection points of
ELASTICITY
Consider an elastic beam with uniform cross section and static load , where is the location of
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the load along the beam. Then the deflection the equation
(the amount the beam sags at location
) satisfies
where and are constants: is the constant of elasticity (depends on the material), and moment of inertia (depends on the shape of the beam).
is the
TAYLOR SERIES
As seen in previous modules, information about the derivatives of a function evaluated at a single point gives information about the function for inputs near that point via the Taylor series:
Taking a few terms of this series gives a polynomial which is a good approximation of
near
. The
more derivatives one knows, the more terms one can include in the series, and the better the approximation.
Bonus: another look at Taylor series

Consider the alternative way to express the Taylor series, in terms of the distance point : from the base
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Note that this resembles the Taylor series for the exponential
, where
This may seem a little unusual. But the idea of exponentiating an operator to get another operator is a useful tool, which comes up in other areas of mathematics. In this notation, we can write
Another way to think of this is that gives back the function .
is the shift operator, which takes in the function
and
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Optimization
One of the most important applications of derivatives is < Higher der ivatives | Home Page | Differ entials > optimization . In some introductory calculus classes these types of problems are called max/min problems: given a function, what is the maximum or minimum output subject to some constraints. This module will review how derivatives can be used in these problems and give some of the reasons why these methods work.
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Critical points
First, observe that for a differentiable function , if the derivative is not zero at a point, then that point cannot be a maximum or a minimum. For instance, if the derivative is positive, then the output is increasing with respect to the input, so by increasing the input, one can increase the output. Hence, the point is not a maximum. If the derivative is negative, then decreasing the input will increase the output, so that point cannot be a maximum.
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Similarly, a point cannot be a minimum if the derivative is not zero. Thus, the only possible inputs where a maximum or minimum can occur are those where the derivative is zero. This motivates the following definition Critical point A critical point of a function the derivative is undefined. Critical points include maximum and minimum points (called extrema) as well as inflection points; these are the points where the derivative is 0. Other critical points occur at corner points or discontinuities, where the derivative is undefined. The reason for including points where the derivative is not defined is that such a point could be a maximum or minimum: is an input where either or where
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Example Compute the critical points of . Answer
Classifying critical points

Once one has computed a critical points using the second derivative test: Second Derivative Test Suppose 1. If 2. If 3. If is a critical point of , then , then where . . . , one can classify whether it is a maximum or minimum
has a local minimum at has a local maximum at
, then the test fails.
In the third case, one can use the Taylor expansion about to determine the behavior of the function. In this case, could still be a local maximum, minimum, or inflection point.
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Justification Example Use the Taylor series about for
to determine whether the function has a local maximum, local minimum, or inflection point at (Take as a given that is a critical point). Answer Example Consider a square sheet of cardboard of side length . By cutting equal sized squares of side length from each corner of the sheet and folding up the flaps which are formed, one gets an open box:
Note that as gets bigger, the box gets taller but the area of the base of the box shrinks. As gets smaller, the area of the base grows, but the height shrinks. Find the value of which maximizes the volume of the resulting box. Answer
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Example Classify the critical points of Example Suppose a firm producing widgets expects to sell units (where is the price of the . Answer
unit). What price should the firm set to maximize revenue (note that revenue here is just price times quantity sold)? Answer
Global Extrema
While a local maximum or minimum is sometimes useful information, what is usually more important is the global maximum and minimum values of a function on a closed interval (or subject to some other constraint such as function. Global extrema on the interval must also evaluate Example Find the global extrema of on the interval . Answer ). These are called the global extrema, or absolute extrema, of a
either occur at critical points of
or at the endpoints of the
interval. So in addition to finding the critical points of
in the interval and checking their values, one
at the endpoints of the interval to find the global extrema.
Application: Statistics
In statistics, one often takes experimental data points of the form and looks for a relationship. A very simple relationship is the linear relationship . The data may not follow this relationship perfectly, and there may be some slight experimental error or other noise, so one tries to find the value of which best fits the data:
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This process, called a linear regression , can be framed as an optimization problem. But what is the quantity being optimized? There are several different linear regression models, depending on the quantity being minimized. These different quantities yield different best fit lines. One of the most common models is called ordinary least squares. This method seeks to minimize the sum of the squares of the residuals, which are the vertical distances from the points to the line:
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As shown above, the residual for a given point minimized is
is
. Thus, the quantity being
Taking the derivative with respect to
gives
Setting this equal to 0 and solving for
gives
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Applying the second derivative test, we compute
so the above value of
minimizes the sum of squares (hence the least squares name).
NOTE
To find the line of best fit of the form requires methods of multivariable calculus (because there are two variables, and , which need to be optimized). Optimization with multiple variables is not much more difficult than for a single variable, but these methods are beyond the scope of this course.
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Differentials
This module deals with differentials, e.g. or . A formal treatment of differential forms is beyond the scope of this course. For now, the best way to think about the differential or them with the chain rule:
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is to think of them as rates of change, and relate
In words, the rate of change of equals the rate of change of with respect to times the rate of change of . This is not a perfect interpretation, but it will serve our purposes for this course.
The differential as an operator

Think of the differential as an operator which can be applied to an equation to give back . This process allows one to find the derivative of functions which are defined implicitly,
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i.e., functions which cannot be "solved for differentiation. Example Find Answer Example of the circle .
" as
. This method is called implicit
In economics, the marginal rate of substitution (M RS) of X for Y is the rate at which a consumer is willing to exchange good Y for good X to maintain an equal level of satisfaction (called utility in economics jargon). Let denote a particular consumer's utility function. As a particular example, let X be represents all the different
coffee, in ounces, and Y be doughnuts. Then the curve
combinations of coffee and doughnuts where the consumer is equally happy. For example, if the utility function is
then the following shows the graph of the curve
. The two plotted points show that
this consumer is equally satisfied with 4 ounces of coffee and 2 doughnuts as with 7 ounces of coffee and 1 doughnut.
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The M RS, then, is the rate of exchange of Y for X (doughnuts for coffee) so that utility stays the same (i.e. we stay on the curve). M athematically, this is
Find M RS for the utility function given above, the points Example Find the derivative of the function and and interpret the results. Answer
. Then calculate the M RS at
defined implicitly by the equation
Answer
Related rates
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The differential is often used in related rates problems. A related rates problem typically has a physical description and asks for the rate at which some quantity is changing. The description must be translated into an implicit relation between the variables involved, and then implicit differentiation is used to find the desired derivative. Example Suppose a 10 foot ladder is leaning against a wall. The base of the ladder starts sliding away from the wall at a rate of 4 feet per second. At the moment when the base of the ladder is 6 feet away from the wall, at what rate is the top of the ladder sliding down the wall? Answer Example Consider the shape of a stream of water as it flows from a faucet. The stream has a circular crosssection which gets narrower lower in the stream, and the goal is to find how the radius of that crosssection is changing with respect to time. Assume on the one hand that the water is flowing at a constant rate . On the other hand, the area of the cross section times the velocity through that cross section equals the flow:
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Dividing by
and taking the differential gives
So Now, using the chain rule and a few facts from physics gives that
This is known as a differential equation (in particular, a separable differential equation). One can solve this equation to get an explicit expression for in terms of ; see the module on separable differential equations.
Relative rates of change

We can normalize the differential of change. Note that by dividing by . This gives . This is known as the relative rate
Example For a given resistor in an electrical circuit, Ohm's law says that
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where is voltage across the resistor, is the current, and is the resistance of the resistor. If the voltage across a variable resistor is fixed, find the relationship between the relative rates change of resistance and current. Answer Example In a geometric solid (say, a sphere or a cube), how does the relative rate of change in volume compare to that of surface area? Answer Example In economics, the demand curve for a good is the quantity of the good that a consumer would
purchase as a function of the price of the good. The demand curve slopes downward since a consumer will typically buy less of a good if it is more expensive (the exception being a Giffen good). The price elasticity of demand, , for a good is the rate of change of relative quantity fluctuation with respect to relative price fluctuation. Informally, it can be thought of as the percent change in quantity resulting from a percent change in price. One can also think of as a measure of how price sensitive a consumer is for that good at that price. M athematically,
The negative sign is there to force elasticity to be positive (without it, due to the downward slope of the demand curve).
would always be negative
A good is said to be elastic at a certain price if (that is, a consumer is highly sensitive to price changes). A good is inelastic at a certain price if . An example of an elastic good is wine, since a small increase in the relative price of wine can result in a consumer substituting a different alcohol for it. An example of an inelastic good is toilet paper, since regardless of price changes, a consumer is likely to require about the same amount of toilet paper:
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Revenue,
, is given by
. How does one maximize the relative revenue with respect to
relative change in price?

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Differentiation As An Operator
The sum, product, quotient, and chain rules make it < Differ entials | Home Page | Antidiffer entiation > possible to differentiate many functions. However, there are some more exotic functions which cannot be differentiated using these tools alone. For example, what is the derivative of or or ? The derivative should be interpreted as a rate of change, but what about the act of differentiation? Differentiation is an operator: it takes in a function and gives out another function. Other examples of operators include the logarithm, exponentiation, and integration. These (and other) operators can be applied to an entire equation to transform a hard problem to an easy problem and (once the solution is found) back again. This idea will allow us to compute the derivatives of the exotic functions above, and more.
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Logarithmic differentiation
A common combination is called logarithmic differentiation, which consists of applying the logarithm operator followed by the differentiation operator. It is best demonstrated by example.
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Example Find the derivative of Example Use logarithmic differentiation to show that Example Find the derivative of Example Find the derivative of . Answer . Answer . Answer using logarthmic differentiation. Answer
Other operators
There are other operators which can be used prior to differentiation. Consider the following examples. Example Compute the derivative of by using exponentiation followed by differentiation. Answer
Note that is the inverse of , and so when we exponentiated the equation, it could be thought of as applying the inverse of . This same method works for many other inverse functions. In particular, applying a trigonometric function can be thought of as an operator as well. This method can be used to find the derivatives of the various inverse trigonometric functions. Example Find the derivative of Example Find the derivative of . Answer . Answer
Operators in other contexts

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Besides being useful in computing derivatives of exotic functions, operators (especially the logarithm) can also be useful in computing limits. The method is similar to the above method for derivatives. Example Show that
This is a common limit which will come up again in the course. Answer
Infinite Power Tower

Consider the infinite power tower
That is, raised to the raised to the define this function is implicitly:
etc. This is certainly an unusual function. A better way to
To see that this makes intuitive sense, note that the exponent of the first itself an infinite tower, so replacing the exponent of with is sensible. Use logarithmic differentiation to find the derivative of this function (that is, Answer It turns out that this function is well-defined and differentiable on
in the infinite tower is
).
One can check that the implicit equation.
pairs
all satisfy the above
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Antidifferentiation
This module begins our study of < Differ entiation as an oper ator | Home Page | Exponential gr owth examples > integration. Integration, or antidifferentiation , can be thought of as running differentiation in reverse, or undoing the derivative. This motivates the following definition: The Indefinite Integral The indefinite integral of derivative is . , denoted , is the class of functions whose . The act of
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is also referred to as the anti-derivative of
taking the indefinite integral is an operator which is referred to as anti-differentiation or integration .
NOTE
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The indefinite integral of a function is only defined up to an added constant, called the constant of integration. In other words, if is an anti-derivative of , then , a constant, is also an anti-derivative of , because disappears when differentiated. Conversely, any two indefinite integrals of differ only by some constant. Any of the known derivatives from the previous chapter can be rephrased as an integral. For example, just as there was a power rule for differentiating monomials, there is a corresponding power rule for integrating monomials. And any anti-derivative can easily be checked by taking the derivative and seeing that the result gives back the original function. Example Give the integral of each of the following functions: , , , , . Answer
There are other functions which are harder to integrate by merely using one of the derivatives we already know. Some of these can be integrated using other techniques from upcoming modules, but there are also functions whose anti-derivative cannot be expressed in terms of simple functions.
Differential equations
The motivating problem for the study of anti-differentiation is solving a differential equation . A differential equation is an equation involving a function and its derivative. In this course, we deal with ordinary differential equations, ODEs, which are differential equations involving only functions of one variable and the derivative with respect to that variable (future courses deal with partial differential equations, which involve functions of several variables and partial derivatives). Solving a differential equation means finding the function (or class of functions, usually) which satisfy the differential equation.
A SIMPLE ODE
The simplest differential equation is of the form
Here, the goal is to find the function
whose derivative with respect to
is
. But this is is given by
precisely what the integral is. And so, the solution of the differential equation
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. Using the interpretation of the derivative as slope, one can think of the function the slope of the function : as describing
Thus,
is a function which fits the slopes prescribed by
. Note that any constant vertical shift
of a solution
will still have the same slope at each point. This is one interpretation of the
integration constant: it represents the potential vertical shifts to a solution of the differential equation. Example Consider a falling object. Let be the height of the object at time , be the velocity of the
object, and assume that acceleration is the constant (negative because gravity pulls down). Express the height of the object as a function of , , and ; here, and are the velocity and height of the object, respectively, at time . Answer
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THE NEXT SIMPLEST ODE

Another slightly more complex ODE is of the form
Before we discuss how to solve this in general, we consider a specific example, which is one of the most famous differential equations:
where
is a constant. We solve this differential equation in three different ways: satisfies comes out when
1. (Guess) Solve this differential equation by first observing that and then adjusting the exponent so that an extra factor of differentiating. Hint: remember the chain rule. Answer 2. (Series) Solve the differential equation by assuming
and then determining what the constants
must be to satisfy the differential equation. Answer
3. (Integration) Rearrange the differential equation into the form
and integrate both sides to solve the differential equation. Answer The differential equation from this example is sometimes used as a simple model of population growth. In words, the differential equation says that the growth of a population is proportional to the size of the population. As the solution above slows, this model implies the population has exponential growth. This is not a very good model for most populations because of competition for resources and overcrowding. But under certain conditions and for short periods of time, some populations (for instance, bacteria with an abundant food supply) do exhibit exponential growth. For more examples of exponential growth, see the next module.
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Initial value problems

Although a general differential equation's solution often depends on a constant (sometimes several), an additional condition called an initial value or initial condition can specify a specific solution. This condition is usually of the form . A differential equation with such an initial condition is called an initial value problem . To solve such a problem, first find the general solution and then use the initial value to find the specific constant of integration which satisfies the initial condition. In the context of population growth, the initial value is typically the size of the population at time 0. This is particularly nice in the exponential growth model, because the solution is of the form . So if is given, then plugging this in gives .
EXAMPLE
Solve the initial value problem , with . Answer
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Exponential Growth Examples

Recall from the last module that the differential equation has solution ,
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where is some constant. The constant can be thought of as an initial condition, the value of the function at time . When , the function has exponential growth. When , the function has exponential decay:
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This module is devoted to several examples of exponential growth and decay.
Radioactive decay
Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon which exists in organic materials. It is known that the rate at which carbon-14 atoms decay is proportional to the number of carbon-14 atoms present. If represents the number of atoms, then the differential equation is
where
is positive (and so the number of atoms is decreasing).
Population growth
For bacteria with an abundant food supply, the population satisfies
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for some positive . But as the food supply dwindles, or overcrowding occurs, the population growth will necessarily slow (or else the bacteria would eventually consume the earth). Thus, this is not usually an accurate population model.
Interest accumulation
Consider a bank account with initial deposit (also called the principal) which is compounded times a year (so gives simple interest, etc.). Then the value of the account at the end of bigger and bigger? Recall that years is . Then it follows that , annual interest rate , and is quarterly interest, . What happens as gets
This is called continuous compounding. So an account with continuous compounding is worth after years, where is the initial investment, and is the annual interest rate.
RULE OF 70
The Rule of 70 is a mental math trick that approximates the number of years it takes for a continuously compounded account to double in value. The rule says that
In other words, the number of years is 70 divided by the annual percentage. Verify the Rule of 70. Answer
Linguistics
Historical linguists study (among other things) word usage and the rate at which words fall out of use. Let be the number of words which are in active use in English after years. One model predicts
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that Example
, hence
, and
is the number of common words at time 0.
Suppose the writing of John M ilton (from around 1667) consists of 20% words which are unfamiliar to us today. Use the above model to estimate the fraction of words that Shakespeare's audience (from around 1600) recognized of Chaucer's writing (from around 1400). Answer This model ignores the creation of new words as well as the fact that definitions of existing words can evolve over time. So it is probably not the most accurate model. It is worth noting that even if the mathematics are correct, if the underlying model is not very good, then the resulting answer will not be very good either.
Zombies
Suppose in the zombie apocalypse that the rate of change of the infected population proportional to the uninfected population constant). Then . Let is be the total population (assumed to be
since derivative of
(the number of uninfected is the total population less the infected). Taking the gives
since
was assumed to be constant. Thus,
, where
is the initial uninfected
population. And so the zombie population is given by
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Note the population is doomed, as
as
Although a zombie apocalypse is unlikely, this model is still useful for other phenomena involving how quickly something spreads. This includes the spread of disease, propaganda, and technology. Another example is heat transfer, discussed in detail below.
Newton's law of cooling

Newton's law of cooling says that the rate of change of the temperature of a body is proportional to the difference of the temperatures of the body and ambient environment. Let be the temperature of the body and be the ambient temperature. Then
for some positive constant
. Separating gives
and integrating and exponentiating gives
. Thus the solution is
. , the temperature of . Also, note that
Note that must be positive for this to model to make sense. Indeed, as the body should approach the ambient temperature, which will only happen if is the initial difference in temperature.
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More Differential Equations

Recall that an ordinary differential equation is < Exponential gr owth examples | Home Page | ODE Linear ization > an equation involving a function and its derivatives. The solution to a differential equation is a function which satisfies the equation. An earlier module introduced a few basic differential equations. This module deals with a few different families of differential equations and the methods of solving them.
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Autonomous differential equations

A differential equation is called autonomous if the derivative of the function i.e. the equation is of the form is independent of ,
Logically, a nonautonomous differential equation is one where the derivative equals a function of both
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and :
In general, nonautonomous differential equations can be very difficult, but certain types yield to a little algebra and integration. These include separable differential equations and linear first order differential equations, which are covered here.
Separable differential equations

A separable differential equation is one where, with a little algebra, we are able to express the differential equation in the form
This may involve some algebra. Note in particular that any autonomous equation is separable (think of ). Once a differential equation is factored this way, it can be solved by using the chain rule and some algebra:
(This is why these equations are called separable--the variables can be separated to opposite sides of the equation). To solve this equation, one must find the functions whose derivatives are , respectively. In other words, one integrates both sides. Example Solve the differential equation Answer Example and
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Solve the differential equation Answer Example Assume that a falling body with mass downward acceleration . Thus, has a drag force proportional to velocity . Then the , for some constant
is being counteracted by the upward acceleration
which is separable. Solve this differential equation. Answer
Linear 1st order differential equations

The product rule gives a technique (integration by parts) for seemingly difficult integrals; the product rule also gives a technique for solving a certain class of non-separable differential equations called linear 1st order differential equations. This is a differential equation which can be written in the form
(as for separable differential equations, this may involve a little algebra). This form gives the reason for calling these equations linear, since dropping the 's gives
which is reminiscent of the equation of a line. 1st order means that the equation only involves the function and its derivative (and no higher derivatives), along with functions of . The standard form of a linear 1st order differential equation is achieved by bringing all the terms involving to the left side, which gives
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Example Identify which of these is a linear 1st order differential equation, and put it in standard form if it is. In the cases that are not, identify which condition is violated. Are all separable equations also linear 1st order? 1. 2. 3. 4. Answer
INTEGRATING FACTORS
The method for solving linear 1st order differential equations is to use the product rule to factor the sum of two derivatives into the derivative of a product. It is best explained by example. Example In part 1 from the previous example, note that differential equation can be written as constant . Thus the solution is . by the product rule. So that . Integrating both sides gives for some
However, not all linear 1st order differential equations are expressed so nicely. For instance, in example 3 above, one cannot rewrite as the derivative of a product of functions. This is where an integrating factor is used. The integrating factor, denoted by entire differential equation, giving in this course, is a function which is multiplied through the
is chosen so that the left side of this equation can be factored as a derivative of a product using the product rule. Symbolically, the goal is to choose so that
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To find
, expand the product
. For this to equal the left side of the above . This differential equation is separable, and one finds that
equation, it must be that
. Integrating and exponentiating gives that
One need not work through all this algebra every time but can jump straight to writing down the integrating factor. M ultiplying through by the integrating factor allows the left side to be rewritten by the product rule, and integrating both sides finishes the problem. To summarize the method: 1. Get the differential equation into standard form 2. Compute the integrating factor 3. M ultiply the entire equation by , which gives . .
4. Rewrite the left side as the derivative of a product (this works because of the way chosen): . . 5. Integrate both sides and then divide by 6. The final answer, then, is given by
was
Example Solve the differential equation
Hint: Example
. Answer
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Suppose a 1000 gallon tank is 90% full. An additive is is pumped into the tank at a rate of 10 gallons per minute. The mixture is well stirred and drained at a rate of 5 gallons per minute. What is the concentration of the additive when the tank is full? Answer
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ODE Linearization
We have seen techniques for solving two < Mor e differ ential equations | Home Page | Integr ation by Substitution > types of differential equations: separable and linear. Unfortunately, there are a lot of differential equations which do not fit into these categories. In some of these cases, we can use linearization to determine the behavior of such differential equations.
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Oscillation
How does one model oscillation? It turns out that a first order differential equation will not work, but a second order (i.e. involving the second derivative) equation will:
Solving such an equation is beyond the scope of this course, but in a course on differential equations one finds the pair of solutions
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For this course we will look at a simpler way to model oscillation.
Simple Oscillator
Consider a spinner where Then increases linearly with represents the angle the arrow makes with the positive x-axis at time . and whenever gets to , it goes back to 0:
Hide oscillator (to avoid hypnosis)
This can be modeled by
where means "take the remainder when divided by ". Here can be thought of as the frequency of the spinner (e.g. how many revolutions per minute it makes).
Coupled Oscillators
Now consider two simple oscillators, and , with the same frequency , but which are slightly out
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of phase with each other (i.e. one arrow is slightly ahead of the other): Hide oscillators (to avoid hypnosis)
Now suppose these oscillators are coupled so that each exerts a small influence on the other (e.g. by connecting their axles with a rod). One way to represent this mathematically is to adjust the rates of change of the oscillators so that they are affected by the difference in angles:
Here,
is some small constant which represents the strength of the effect of the coupling. When
is
bigger than , the above differential equations speed up slightly and slow down slightly. One can find by simulation that this coupling effect causes the oscillators to synchronize relatively quickly, depending on how big the phase is between them and how big is: Hide oscillators (to avoid hypnosis)
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SYNCHRONIZATION
To analyze the synchronization effect mathematically, consider the phase oscillators: between the two
Looking at how the phase
changes with respect to time gives
This is a separable differential equation, but solving it to find as an explicit function of is not so easy, and does not really help us understanding the synchronization phenomenon. But linearization will help us understand the synchronization effect and how quickly it occurs.
LINEARIZATION
Going back to the differential equation for the phase, suppose we replace with its linearization:
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This will be a good approximation assuming the phase is small (the oscillators are not too far out of sync). This is a familiar differential equation, which gives us the approximate solution
where is the initial phase. This is called the linearized solution to the original differential equation. Here, the linearized solution predicts that the phase decays exponentially, which is consistent with the above simulation.
Equilibria
Another way to study differential equations and predict their behavior, is to study the equilibria of the equation. An equilibrium of the equation
(here, the quantity
), is a solution does not change.
, C a constant, such that
. In other words, an
equilibrium is a root of
. In terms of the differential equation, an equilibrium is a steady state where
One way to find the equilibria of a differential equation is to plot the derivative of a function versus the function itself. From the phase differential equation above, we plot on the y-axis and on the x-axis and look for roots:
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The roots of this equation are the values of we are interested, the roots are
for which
. For the range of values in which
. The equilibrium at 0 is familiar, because that is the
state of synchronization to which the above simulation converged. The other two correspond to a phase of , which means the oscillators are completely opposite one another (it is the same for since these angles are co-terminal).
STABLE AND UNSTABLE

A logical question at this point is why did the above coupled oscillator simulation eventually synchronize rather than ending up in opposite directions? In general, some equilibria are attractive in the sense that if the quantity gets near such an equilibrium, it will be drawn towards it and stay at it. Some equilibria are repellent in the sense that even if is very close to such an equilibrium, it will be pushed away from it. Formally, Stable and Unstable Equilibria An equilibrium of the differential equation
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is stable if
and is unstable if
It is best to make sense of these definitions visually. Plot versus . Then each root of this equation is an equilibrium. If the graph crosses from positive to negative (going from left to right), then the equilibrium is stable. If the graph crosses from negative to positive (again, from left to right), then the equilibrium is unstable:
Another way to think of stable and unstable equilibria is to visualize one ball sitting in a bowl, and another ball sitting on top of an inverted bowl:
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Each of these balls is in equilibrium (it will stay where it is as long as it is not disturbed). But the ball in the bowl is stable because if we nudge it in either direction, it will return to its equilibrium. However, the ball on the inverted bowl is unstable because if it is nudged in either direction it will roll off the bowl. Example Find and classify the equilibria of the equation Answer
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Integration By Substitution
The previous modules gave some of the motivation for integration as a method of solving differential equations. In this and the next few modules, we turn to techniques of integration.
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Integration rules
Since integration is the inverse of differentiation, one can turn differentiation rules into integration rules. For example, by the linearity of the derivative, we have linearity of the integral:
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where
is a constant. In other words, integration is a linear operator.
The rest of this module deals with turning the chain rule for differentiation into a rule for integration. This rule is called substitution , or u-substitution traditionally.
Substitution: the chain rule in reverse

Recall the chain rule, which says that if is a function of , then
Now if
is a function of
, then we find
(To get from the left side to the right, all we have done is replace respectively). This is the formula for substitution, or u-substitution.
and
by
and
Substitution is a useful technique but is not always easy to apply. In a typical problem, one encounters the right side of the above equation, but without knowing what and are. If one can find the correct and so that the integral can be expressed as above, then one can switch over to the left side of the above equation, which is usually easier to evaluate. Example Compute
Answer Example Compute
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Answer It is not always so easy to see the ideal choice of , and sometimes it might take a few tries to find the right substitution. Usually, a good strategy is to look for the inner function of a composition of functions and let that be . Another idea is to look for a function whose derivative is also a factor of the integrand. Example Compute
Answer Another general tip for integration by substitution is to try to simplify the integrand as much as possible before integrating. Example Compute
Answer Example The Gompertz model for the size of a tumor at time is
where
and
are constants. Solve this differential equation. Hint: it is separable.
Then find the limit behavior
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Finally, find the equilibria of the original differential equation and classify them as stable or unstable. Answer Example Compute
Answer
Perspective
The big idea of this module is that a change of variables (a substitution of one variable for a function of another) can change a difficult integral into an easier one. After computing the easier integral, we can change the variables back again. This idea will come up again in this course and in multivariable calculus.
Additional Examples
Example Compute
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Answer
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Integration By Parts
This module uses the product rule to derive another useful integration technique: integration by parts. Recall the product rule:
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Integrating both sides gives
Solving for
gives
Integration by parts
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If
and
are two functions of
, then
Intuitively, we are given a difficult integral
. By breaking the integrand into
and
and . Like with
applying the above formula, we are hopefully able to wind up with an easier integral
the substitution technique, it requires a little bit of thought to choose suitable and . Once and are picked, it is a fairly mechanical process to apply the formula (assuming a good choice of and ). Note that the selection is constrained by the fact that must be the entire integrand. So whatever choice is made for , whatever factors are left over become . Note also that the formula involves finding , and so must be integrable. Ideally, should be easy to integrate, which can help guide the selection. Example Compute
Answer Example Try to compute
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Hint: it cannot be done using integration by parts. Answer
LIPET: A tip for choosing
and
It is not always obvious how to choose and . The mnemonic LIPET gives a suggestion for how to select , and then whatever is left over becomes . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. L ogarithm Inverse function Polynomial Exponential Trigonometric.
When picking , go down the list until some factor of the integrand first matches something from the list. So in the first example above, there was no logarithm, no inverse function, but there was a polynomial, , which was chosen for . In the second example, there was a logarithm, so that became . This will not always work perfectly, because (as the above example showed) some integrals simply cannot be computed using integration by parts. But in most examples where integration by parts works, the above mnemonic will help give the correct selection of and . Example Compute
Answer
Repeated use
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Sometimes integration by parts requires repeated use, if the integral
is not easy to compute.
It is not always easy to tell when repeating integration by parts will help, but with practice it becomes easier. Example Compute
Answer There are integrals that require several applications of integration by parts before they are finished. Unfortunately, it is not always clear when it will work and when it will not. Doing a lot of practice can help develop the intuition to tell the difference. As the next example shows, sometimes an integral that looks like a perfect candidate for integration by parts does not yield to this method. Example Compute
Answer
Reduction formulae
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A final application of integration by parts is to prove what are known as reduction formulae. These formulae express one integral in terms of another slightly simpler integral. One can use a reduction formula to repeatedly simplify an integral, eventually reaching a known integral. These formulae are invariably derived by using integration by parts and some algebra. Example For a fixed integer , show that
Use this formula to find
Answer Example Similar algebra as in the above example shows that for
Example Find a reduction formula for
Use it to evaluate
Answer Example
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Show that for
Answer
Additional examples
Example Compute
Hint: recall that Answer

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Partial Fractions
So far, the techniques of integration covered in < Tr igonometr ic substitution | Home Page | Definite integr als > this course have all been derived from differentiation rules run in reverse. This module gives an algebraic method for integrating rational functions. Recall that a rational function is a function of the form
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where
and
are polynomials. It turns out that with a little bit of algebraic manipulation,
many of these integrals are not too difficult to compute. Example Compute
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Answer The rest of this module expands on this method (in particular, when the denominator is of a higher degree), which is known as the method of partial fractions.
Partial fractions
Given a rational function , and has a lower power than , the method of partial fractions uses
algebra to rewrite the function as a sum of simpler terms which are easy to integrate. While there are some cases to deal with, the basic outline of the method is: 1. Given the integral 2. Factor where and are polynomials. . Assume for now that each of these
factors is distinct. 3. We use the following fact, that the rational function can be expressed as
4. Use algebra to find what each of the constants 5. Then
is. This step requires the most work.
Example Compute Answer Example
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Example Compute Answer Example Compute Answer Example A simple model for the deflection of a thin beam under a load proportional to is
Solve this differential equation (but do not solve for
explicitly). Then find the equilibria of the
differential equation and classify them as stable or unstable. Answer Example The logistic model for population dynamics says that the rate of change of a population respect to time is with
where and are positive constants which can be thought of as the reproduction rate and death rate, respectively. Factoring and letting , we have
Solve this differential equation. What is the long run population behavior? Answer
Other technicalities
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HIGHER DEGREE NUMERATOR

For the algebra to work out above, the degree of the numerator, the denominator, , must be lower than that of . However, it is easy to deal with the case when the numerator has equal or
higher degree. One can use long division to rewrite the quotient as a divisor plus a remainder, just like writing an improper fraction as a mixed number in middle school.
REPEATED FACTORS
If the denominator has one or more repeated factors, i.e.
where one or more of the
is greater than 1. Then the way to express the function is
Now, the algebra proceeds as before to find the constants in the numerators. It is easiest to see this through an example. Example Compute Answer
QUADRATIC FACTORS
Suppose one of the factors of the denominator is a quadratic which cannot be factored (e.g. Then the numerator of this factor in the expansion should be of the form proceeds as before. ). . Then the algebra
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Example Compute Answer
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Trigonometric Substitution
There is another class of integrals which usually do not < Integr ation by par ts | Home Page | Par tial fr actions > involve trigonometric functions, but which can be solved by substituting the variable with a trigonometric function. This can be thought of as using the substitution formula, from Integration By Substitution, in the other direction. That is, going from the left side to right side in the equality
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where we have made the substitution substitution. Example Compute
. We often use
when making a trigonometric
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Answer
Typical substitutions
Trigonometric substitution makes use of the Pythagorean identities. In general, the basic trigonometric substitutions are: Form Substitution Identity used
CAVEAT
The form often leads to a messy integral involving . This can often be avoided using a hyperbolic trigonometric substitution (see below). After a substitution has been made, the resulting integral will often involve a product of trigonometric functions, possibly raised to powers. These types of integrals are covered in more detail in Trigonometric Integrals. For now, here are a few of the useful identities in evaluating these integrals: Power reduction
Double angle
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Example Compute Answer Example Compute Answer
Forms with other constants

There are other forms which are similar to the above forms but have different constants involved. These are dealt with using similar substitutions which make the constants cancel and factor so that the same identities can be used. Example Compute Answer Example Compute Answer The following table summarizes the substitutions to be made when other constants are involved. The identities used are the same Pythagorean identities given in the above table. Form Substitution
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Completing the square

Sometimes it is not obvious at first that an integral is of the form where a trigonometric substitution is helpful. It may take a little bit of algebra to see what the right substitution is. This common algebraic tool is known as completing the square, which simply rewrites a quadratic expression as the square of a binomial plus a constant. To review the algebra involved in this process, check Wikipedia:Completing the square. Example Compute Answer
Hyperbolic trigonometric substitutions

Recall that the hyperbolic trigonometric functions and are defined by
These functions satisfy the Pythagorean identity , and another option for dealing with the following forms: Form Substitution Identity used
. Also, note that . This means hyperbolic substitutions are
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This often gives a simpler answer than the substitution suggested above, but the trade-off is that the answer will involve hyperbolic functions. Here are some of the other identities for the hyperbolic functions, which are similar to those for regular trigonometric functions: Double Angle
Power reduction
Example Compute Answer Example Compute
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Answer
Blow-ups
Sometimes a differential equation can be solved by using a trigonometric substitution. But this can sometimes lead to an unreasonable solution due to blow-ups or singularities, which exist for many trigonometric functions. Example Consider a financial model which predicts that marginal profits equal some positive constant plus something which is proportional to the square of net profits. M athematically,
for constants and (we square them to ensure that they are positive). Solve this differential equation and find where it has a blow-up. Answer
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Definite Integrals
This module moves from the indefinite < Par tial fr actions | Home Page | Fundamental Theor em of Integr al Calculus > integral, which is a class of functions, to the definite integral, which is a number. The relationship between these seemingly unrelated topics will be revealed in the next module. The idea underlying the definite integral is that adding up local increments leads to a global total. Before getting into the details of what this means, consider a simple example. Example Consider
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One can visualize this sum as the area of a triangular stack of
boxes. The first column has 1 box,
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the second column has 2 boxes, and so on through the nth column with n boxes:
The area of this roughly triangular region can be found by splitting it into two regions: a right triangle of base and height , and the half boxes left over:
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The total area is therefore
, and so we find that
The point of this example is to compare the amount of computation (e.g. the number of additions) required to do the sum using local information (adding up the terms one by one), verses the global information (evaluating the product on the right above). It is much easier to simply evaluate the product. The definite integral takes this type of idea and generalizes it to more difficult sums. Before we can define it, we need a few definitions.
Partitions and Riemann sums

Given an interval , a partition of is a division of the interval into subintervals . Visually, think of placing hash marks along the interval and then labeling the subintervals
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from left to right:
Let
be the width of the ith subinterval,
Choose a sample point from the ith subinterval (this can be a point chosen at random from the subinterval or systematically; it does not matter). Given a function on is given by , a partition for an interval , and sample points , the Riemann sum of
The Riemann sum can be interpreted as an approximation of the area under the curve of using rectangles. The width and height of the th rectangle are and
from
to
, respectively.
Note that in this area interpretation, a rectangle which is below the x-axis has negative area (since in this case). For an example with rectangles, consider the following figure:
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The definite integral

The definite integral The definite integral of a function from to , denoted
is defined by
The function
being integrated is called the integrand.

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In other words, the definite integral is the limit of the Riemann sums as the lengths of the subintervals approach 0. In the area interpretation, the widths of all the rectangles are getting arbitrarily small, which ultimately gives the area under the curve:
Remember that when interpreting the definite integral as the area under the curve, any region which is below the x-axis contributes negative area to the total. Example Using the definition of the definite integral, compute Answer
NOTATION
Sums The integral sign and the summation sign are both short for sum. The integral sign looks like a stylized S, and the summation sign is the Greek sigma, short for sum. Limits Including the variable in the limits of integration is not strictly necessary, but is a useful habit to develop for future courses where integration will be happening with respect to several variables. It is also fine to suppress the notation and just have :
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Variables The variable used in the integrand does not matter; it is sometimes referred to as a dummy variable:
However, if there is a variable used in one of the limits of integration (as will happen from time to time), it is important to avoid using that as the dummy variable too. For example,
CAVEAT
Note that, although their notation is similar, definite integrals are not the same as indefinite integrals! The indefinite integral of a function is a class of functions, whereas the definite integral of a function over an interval is a number. That said, it is no accident that they have similar notations, because of their relationship, which is given by the Fundamental Theorem of Integral Calculus in the next module.
Properties of definite integrals

LINEARITY
The definite integral is linear, i.e.
Justification
ADDITIVITY
When integrating the same function over two adjacent intervals, we have additivity:
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In the area interpretation, this can be thought of as taking the area under the curve from to and adding the area under the curve from to , which gives the area under the curve from to :
Another way of thinking about it is adding the intervals
and
together to get
. It is
important to note that the orientation of the interval matters, as discussed in the next subsection.
ORIENTATION
The orientation of the interval over which we integrate matters. Integrating from left to right is positive, and integrating from right to left is negative:
Justification
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DOMINANCE
This is another intuitive property. If for all in the interval , then
Also, if
for all
in the interval, then
Justification
More examples
There are a few definite integrals that we can compute directly from the definition. But for most functions, it is not easy to work directly with the definition. Example Compute Answer Example Compute
Answer
Odd and even functions

There are a few final cases where certain definite integrals can be simplified by using properties of
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the integrand. Odd and even functions A function is called odd if
A function
is called even if
The reason for the terminology comes from Taylor series. A function is odd if and only if every term in its Taylor series has odd power. Similarly, a function is even if and only if every term in its Taylor series has even power. Justification Example Sine and hyperbolic sine are both odd functions because they only have odd powers in their Taylor series. Cosine and hyperbolic cosine are both even functions because they only have even powers in their Taylor series.
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ODD FUNCTION OVER A SYMMETRIC DOMAIN

If an odd function is integrated over a domain that is symmetric about the origin (i.e., an interval of the form , then
Formally, any subinterval's on the left half of the interval will make a contribution to the Riemann sum which is equal and opposite to the contribution of the corresponding subinterval on the right half of the interval. These equal and opposite sums cancel, and so the definite integral over the entire interval is 0. In terms of the area interpretation, the net area under the curve over the left half of the interval will be equal and opposite in sign to the net area under the curve over the right half of the interval. Therefore, the total area will be 0:
EVEN FUNCTION OVER A SYMMETRIC DOMAIN.

If an even function is integrated over a domain that is symmetric about the origin (i.e., an interval of the form ), then
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Formally, each subinterval on the left half of the interval has a corresponding subinterval on the right with an equal contribution to the Riemann sum. So one can just take the Riemann sum on the right and double it. Using the area interpretation, one can see that the region under the curve on the left will be the mirror image of the region under the curve on the right, so the total area is just twice the area on the right:
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Fundamental Theorem Of Integral Calculus

Computing definite integrals from the definition is < Definite integr als | Home Page | Impr oper integr als > difficult, even for fairly simple functions. Fortunately, there is a powerful toolthe Fundamental Theorem of Integral Calculuswhich connects the definite integral with the indefinite integral and makes most definite integrals easy to compute. The Fundamental Theorem of Integral Calculus (FTIC) Given a continuous function 1. 2. , it follows that and
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(where
).
In other words, Part 1 says that the function
is an anti-derivative of
Part 2 says that the definite integral can be computed by finding the indefinite integral of and subtracting the evaluation at the bottom bound from the evaluation at the top bound. Note that even though the indefinite integral is actually a class of functions that differ by a constant, has the same value for any function in such a class, so when computing the antiderivative for the purpose of computing a definite integral, it is allowable (and convenient) to forego the constant of integration. Part 2 can be expressed in a slightly different way which is illustrative. For a differentiable function we have
This says that the net change in quantity (given on the left side) equals the integral of the rate of change (given on the right side). This interpretation will be used in many applications in the next chapter. Rough proof Example Compute Answer Example
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Compute Answer Example Suppose a publisher prints 12000 books per month with expected revenue of $60 per book. The marginal cost of each book is given by
What would be the change in profit from a 25% increase in production? Answer Example Find Answer Example Find
Answer
CAVEAT
Note that if the integrand fails to be defined or continuous at a point in the interval , then the FTIC does not hold. The following example shows this using the singularities of a rational function. Example Compute
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Limits of integration and substitution

One must be careful when using Part 2 of the Fundamental Theorem of Integral Calculus along with the method of substitution. The reason this can cause problems is that when a substitution is made, the old limits of integration are still in terms of the original variable. Therefore, one must either get the antiderivative in terms of the original variable before evaluating (this is what we usually did at the end of the substitution anyway), or one can change the limits of integration to reflect the new variable. Consider the following example which demonstrates both techniques. Example Compute
where
is some fixed positive constant. Answer
Another case where one must be careful of the limits of integration is with Integration By Parts. One can compute the indefinite integral completely and then apply the limits of integration, or one can apply them as one goes, as in the following:
Example Again compute the definite integral
but this time using integration by parts. Answer
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Additional examples
Example Compute
Answer
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Improper Integrals
An improper integral is a definite < Fundamental Theor em of Integr al Calculus | Home Page | Tr igonometr ic integr als > integral which cannot be evaluated using the Fundamental Theorem of Integral Calculus (FTIC). This situation arises because the integral either 1. has a point in its interval of integration which is not in the domain of the integrand (the function being integrated) or 2. has or as a bound of integration. As an example of the first type, consider
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This integral is improper because the left endpoint, 0, is not in the domain of . Another example of the first type is
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This is improper because the point 2 is in the interval of integration but is not in the domain of For an example of the second type, consider
This is improper because the upper bound is
For an example of the danger of trying to apply the Fundamental Theorem of Integral Calculus when it does not apply, consider
This is an improper integral (hence FTIC does not apply) because the point of . If we were to try to apply FTIC anyway, we would find
is not in the domain
This is problematic since property).
for all
(hence should have a positive integral by the dominance
Dealing with improper integrals

To deal with an improper integral of the first type, first consider the integral not in the domain of , but is continuous on the rest of the interval replaces the lower bound with a variable which is slightly larger than approaches from the right (this is denoted by ). , where is
. In this situation, one
, and then takes the limit as
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This replacement allows the integral
to be computed using FTIC, since
is continuous
on that interval. After that integral is computed (in terms of ), the limit is computed. If the limit exists, then the original integral exists and equals the result. If the limit does not exist or is infinite, then the original integral does not exist either. Example Determine whether the integral
exists, and if it exists, what its value is. Answer If the right endpoint, , of the integral is not in the domain of , then gets replaced
with a variable slightly smaller than , and again the integral is replaced with a limit, this time as (that is, the limit as approaches from the left).
Again, the integral equals this limit, if it exists. If the limit does not exist, then the integral does not exist. Example Determine whether the integral
exists. If it exists, find its value. Answer
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For integrals where a point inside the interval of integration is not in the domain of the integrand, the integral is first split at the bad point, and then each integral is evaluated separately using the above techniques. So, consider where the point is not in the domain of and . Then
Both of the resulting limits must exist for the original integral to exist. Example Determine if the integral
exists. Answer
Bounds at infinity
For integrals with one bound at infinity, the integral is defined as follows.
Similarly,
In the case of bounds of and compute each integral as above:
, one can first split the integral at any real number , and then
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As before, both of these limits must exist for the original integral to exist. It is not equivalent to computing a single limit such as
Example Determine if the integral
exists. If it exists, find its value. Answer
The p-integral
One class of improper integrals is common enough to get its own name: the p-integral. This is the name given to integrals of the form
There are two versions of this integral that are of interest to us. First, with a limit at infinity, and second with a limit at 0. Example Show that
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Answer Example Consider the p-integral with a limit at 0:
This integral is improper because 0 is not in the domain of
. Show that
Answer
Converge or diverge
In some contexts, it is enough to know whether an integral converges (has a finite answer) or diverges (goes to infinity or does not exist). Using the knowledge of the above p-integrals, and some asymptotic tools from earlier in the course, can help quickly determine whether certain improper integrals converge or diverge. Example Determine if
converges or diverges. Answer Example
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Determine if
converges or diverges. Answer Example Determine if
converges or diverges. Answer

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Trigonometric Integrals
A trigonometric integral is an integral involving < Impr oper integr als | Home Page | Tables and computer s > products and powers of trigonometric functions: cosine, sine, tangent, secant, cosecant, and cotangent. M any of these integrals can be handled with u-substitution, but there are other methods which are outlined in this module. The three families of integrals discussed in this module are
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Product of sines and cosines

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Consider the integral
There are several cases to consider based on whether
and
are odd and even.
M IS ODD
If is odd, then one factor of can be set aside. This leaves behind an even power of , which can be expressed in terms of using the Pythagorean identity. Then the substitution can be made. Example Find Answer
N IS ODD
If is odd, the procedure is very similar. This time, we set aside a factor of . This leaves an even power of which can be expressed in terms of using the Pythagorean identities. Example Find
Answer
BOTH M AND N ARE EVEN

If neither nor is odd, then both are even. This is a bit more difficult and requires using the power reduction formulas: Power reduction
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Example Find
Answer Example Find
Answer Example Find
Answer
Product of tangents and secants

Next consider the integral
As with the product of sines and cosines, the method will depend on whether
and
are odd or
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even.
M IS ODD
If is odd, we will set aside a factor of . Note that this is the derivative of and so this sets up a substitution of . After setting aside these factors, we are left with an even power of , which can be expressed in terms of using the Pythagorean identity
Now, the integral can be computed using the substitution Example Compute
Answer
N IS EVEN
If is even, then we can set aside a factor of . Note that this is the derivative of therefore sets up the substitution . Setting aside leaves an even power of which can be expressed in terms of using the Pythagorean identity and ,
Then the substitution Example Compute
allows the computation of the integral.
Answer
M IS EVEN, N IS ODD
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If neither of the above cases holds, then the integral is a bit more difficult. It typically requires a bit of algebra and several applications of a reduction formula (or integration by parts). A general method is to rewrite the even power of tangent entirely in terms of secant by using the Pythagorean identity
This gives an integral which is sums of powers of reduction formula for secant:
. Each of these can be solved using the
along with the fact that
Example Compute
Answer
Product of sine and cosine with constants

Finally, consider the integral
This integral requires some algebra to simplify the integrand. One can verify using the sum and difference formulas for sine that
This expression can be integrated term by term to find
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There are similar formulas for related integrals:
These formulas need not be memorized, but be aware they exist and look them up when necessary. Example Compute
Answer
Additional examples
Example Compute
Use the fact (which is proven using integration by parts) that
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Answer
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Tables And Computers

This module discusses some of the shortcuts available < Tr igonometr ic integr als | Home Page | Simple Ar eas > by using tables of integrals and mathematical software. M any integrals can be easily computed by a computer algebra system, but it is still important to know the underlying concepts so as to be able to use these tools efficiently and accurately.
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Tables of integrals
M ost calculus textbooks have an appendix containing one hundred or more integral formulas. All of these formulas can be derived using the techniques of the previous modules (possibly with some additional technical algebra), and it is a good exercise to try to derive some of them. Using the table is sometimes difficult, because finding the correct form can be tricky. And even with the correct form, an integral may not match the form precisely. It may take some algebra and a usubstitution to match the form.
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Example Use the formula
to evaluate the integral
Answer Other table entries are more inductive in nature, like the reduction formulas mentioned in the integration by parts module. Example Use the formulas
and (for
to find
Answer
Mathematical software
Expensive computer algebra systems such as Maple and Mathematica can quickly and accurately dispense with most integrals that can be done by hand. One free alternative, from the makers of M athematica, is Wolfram Alpha, which for most purposes is as good as its more costly relatives, and in
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many cases it can explain the intermediate steps of longer computations (though it now only provides three such explanations per day for a user without a paid subscription). Note that the form of the answer given by computer systems may look different from what one gets by hand or by a table, so care should be taken when comparing answers. Example Compute using Wolfram Alpha, or other computer algebra system. Note the syntax of
the entry (though it is pretty good at parsing other forms of entry). Also note that the answer given is in a different form than that found in the earlier example. Answer Example There are limits to what a computer algebra system can do. Consider the integral
It turns out that the value of this integral is compute it. But if we enter small particular values of sometimes only in decimal form.
for all
, although Wolfram Alpha is not be able to
into Wolfram Alpha, then it does give the answer, although
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Simple Areas
We know the basic standard formulae for the area of basic shapes, but why are they true? From the point of view of calculus, area is the integral of , the area element.
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In this chapter, we will use the following procedure to determine a quantity 1. Determine the differential element . 2. Integrate to compute .
Length of an interval
Before getting to areas, first consider how this method works for computing the length of the interval from to . If the length is denoted , then the length element will be denoted , and . In this context, the appropriate length element would be if we're working along the -axis.
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So, we want to integrate The length,
as
goes from
to .
Parallelogram
The formula for the area of a parallelogram is base height . Consider the following rearrangement into differential elements, where we carve the parallelogram into parallel horizontal strips of width and height , where is the -axis.
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In this case, the area element, should go from The area, to the height,
, is the area of this infinitesimal rectangle. The limits on of the parallelogram.
We have our familiar answer . This means that we've done a rearrangement in terms of infinitesimal strips. Shearing that parallelogram preserves the area element and hence, the area. That is why a parallelogram has the same area as the corresponding rectangle.
Triangle
The formula for the area of a triangle is base height . Let's think in terms of a differential area element. Given the fact that we can shear and preserve the area element, and thus the area,
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let's present our triangle as having a hypotenuse modeled by the line
To compute the area element, let's use a vertical strip.
where the height of that vertical strip is The area,
and the width is the length element
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Disc
We will use three ways to find the area of a circular disc of radius : 1. Using an angular area element. 2. Using a radial variable. 3. Using a lateral, or a vertical rectangular strip.
1. Angular In this case, we'll use an angular area element. We will take a wedge with angle . If we look at that
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close up, it's modeled fairly well as a triangle. It's not a perfect triangle, there's a bit of curvature at the end. This is a triangle with two sides of length whose included angle is . Such a triangle has area , since is very small. If we model that as a triangle with height , and width , we can ignore the higher order terms in the Taylor expansion of that area. We obtain an area element . Integrating to get the area, The area, has to spin all the way around the circle from to .
2. Radial Let's consider a radial variable. We can sweep out the area of the circular disk using annuli with a radial coordinate . Then, we're looking at an annular strip of width . The corresponding area element is the circumference thickness .
Integrating this from
to the radius
gives us the area.
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3. Lateral We will use a vertical rectangular strip. Again, it is not a perfect rectangle and there's a little bit of curvature at the end. But, these are higher order terms, and we just care about the differential element. So, using a vertical strip with width , and knowing that the formula for the boundary circle is , we solve for along the upper and lower branches.
We then obtain an area element that is the area of this rectangular strip.
In the case of strips, assume the circle is centered at the origin, and let keep track of where the strip intersects the -axis. Thus, ranges from to . Integrating, and using a trigonometric substitution gives
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The area between two curves
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Let's say the is on top and the is below. Then as we sweep a vertical strip from left to right, we obtain the area. In this case, the area element is a vertical rectangle of width and of height , the length of the interval between the two.
The general formula for the area between two curves
and
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Example Find the area of the region bounded above by Answer
and below by
Gini Index (An application of area formula)

In economics, this ratio is used to quantify income inequality in a population.
Let
= Fraction of total income earned by the lowest
fraction of the populace,
The Gini index quantifies how far
is from a "flat" distribution. This means that f(0) = 0, f(1) = 1.
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is probably going to be below the flat distribution where lowest fraction. The Gini index,
, the lowest
fraction earns the
is measuring the difference between these two distributions, in terms of area.
It's the ratio of the area between the flat distribution and the given population's income distribution . One normalizes that by the area between the flat distribution and , namely the area of that triangle, or .
Example Compute
for a power law distribution
. Answer
The Gini Index doesn't tell you the income distribution, but we could approximate it in the assumption of a power law. For example, in the year 2010, in the state of New York in USA, the Gini Index was very close to . If we assume that it went by a power law distribution, that would imply a cubic distribution of income.
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Complex Areas Complex regions

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Some regions in the plane are more complicated and cannot be evaluated with a single integral. This happens when the area element is not bounded by the same curves throughout the region. For instance, consider the region bounded by a parabola and two lines:
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In this case, the only way to find the area of the region is to divide it into regions which can be integrated separately:
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Horizontal strips
Other regions are difficult to integrate using vertical strips as the area element, but work well with horizontal strips as the area element. For example, consider the following region bounded on the left by and on the right by :
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In this case, the area of a horizontal strip is a function of , namely is the curve on the right and Example Find the area between the curves is the curve on the left.
, where
Answer Example Find the area of the region bounded by Answer Example and .
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Find the area of the region bounded by
and the lines
, and
. Answer
Polar shapes
A polar shape is the graph of a polar function . Here, the input to the function is , which is the angle formed with the positive -axis (known as the pole). The output is the distance from the origin (or radial distance). For example, the following shows the graph of the polar function , which is known as a cardioid:
The area of such a region is not usually easy to compute by integrating with respect to or (for one thing, the polar equation would need to be expressed in terms of and first!). Instead, the way to integrate over such regions is to use a polar area element, which is a wedge shaped region. Here are several examples of the polar area element for various values of :
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To compute what the polar area element is in terms of , , and , note that the region is roughly triangular (the curved portion at the base of the triangle can be ignored since it is a higher order term). The angle at the tip of the triangle is , the height of the triangle is , and the base of the triangle is :
Thus, the polar area element is
since
. Thus, the area of a polar region defined by

, where
, is
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Example Compute the area of the cardioid Example Find the area of a single petal of the polar curve : . Answer
Hint: To find the bounds on , compute when Example Find the area inside the circle
. Answer
and outside the circle
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Answer
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Volumes Finding the volume element

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Just as area was computed by finding the area element and integrating, volume is computed by determining the volume element (i.e. the volume of a slice) and then integrating:
The difficulty is in finding a suitable volume element evaluating the integral. Example Compute the volume of a cylinder of radius :
. Once that is chosen, the rest is a matter of
and height
using several different volume elements
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Answer Example Find the volume of a sphere of radius . First, by using discs as the volume element (shown on left below). Then use cylindrical shells as the volume element (shown on the right below). Finally, use a spherical shell for the volume element, as shown in the third diagram.
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Answer Example Find the volume of a cone of base radius and height .
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Answer Example Find the volume of a square pyramid of base edge and height .
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Answer Example Show that the volume of a generalized cone of base area reason for the factor of . and height is . Explain the
Answer
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Volumes Of Revolution Volume element for solid of revolution

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Consider a region in the plane and a line . The solid of revolution of about the axis solid which results from taking the region and revolving it around the line :
is the
The result is typically something doughnut shaped. The question of this module is to find the volume of
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the solid:
The method is the same as the previous modules: find the volume element (the contribution of a small slice of the region to the total volume) and integrate. Just as area can be computed using vertical or horizontal slices, volume can be computed using corresponding methods: shells or washers, respectively. The basic outline of finding the volume element for a solid of revolution is 1. Find a convenient area element for the region in the plane 2. Determine the volume as that area element gets revolved around the axis
Cylindrical shells
When the area element is parallel to the axis of rotation, the volume element is a cylindrical shell. Here, the region is bounded by two parabolas. The natural area element for such a region is a vertical rectangle (shown in red). As the region is revolved about the -axis, the volume element traces out a cylindrical shell, whose volume becomes the volume element of the solid of revolution.
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Recall that a cylinder has lateral surface area . The thickness of the cylindrical shell is axis of rotation is a vertical line) or (if the axis of rotation is a horizontal line). Here and generally be functions of horizontal). or (again, depending on whether the axis of rotation is vertical or
(if the will
If a horizontal rectangle is the natural area element (for instance, the region between two horizontal parabolas), and the axis of revolution is the -axis, then cylindrical shells again arise naturally as the volume element:
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Example Suppose the region bounded by volume of the resulting solid? Answer and is revolved about the -axis. What is the
Washers
When the area element is perpendicular to the axis of rotation, the volume element is a washer. So when the area element is a horizontal rectangle (as in a region bounded by horizontal parabolas) and the axis of revolution is vertical, the region traced out by the rectangle is a washer:
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A washer is just an annulus (a circle with a circle cut out of it) which has been thickened. The volume of the washer is the area of the annulus times the thickness of the washer. The area of the annulus is , where is the radius of the outer circle and is the radius of the inner circle. The thickness of the washer is or (depending on the orientation of the washer. Thus, the volume element when using washers is
Example Given the region bounded by revolving the region about the -axis. Answer and , find the volume of the solid resulting from
Additional Examples
Example Find the volume of a doughnut formed by rotating a disc of radius about the y-axis. Let the radius of
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the doughnut be
, as shown in this cutaway:
Use a vertical area element (which leads to a cylindrical shell). Answer Example Compute the volume of the doughnut again, this time using a horizontal area element (which leads to a washer). Answer
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Multi Variable
Volumes In Arbitrary Dimension

The motivation for this module is to find the volume (often referred to as hypervolume) of an object in dimension . This has physical meaning for , but what happens for ?
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The cube in dimension

Consider the unit cube (i.e. the cube of side length 1) in dimensions, sometimes called the hypercube or just the -cube. Formally, this is defined to be the set of -tuples (i.e. lists of length ) such that for all . For , these are familiar figures: the point, line segment, square, and cube, respectively.
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Now, consider some of the various measurements for each of these cubes.
VOLUME OF THE CUBE

For , the cube is just a point, and volume is defined to just be the number of points. So a single point has volume 1. For , the cube is a line segment. The volume in one dimension is just length, so the one dimension cube has volume 1. For , the cube is a square of side length 1. In two dimensions, volume is area, so the cube in two dimensions has volume . For , the cube is a (traditional) cube of side length 1, which has (traditional) volume .
For higher values of , this pattern continues. The intuition is that each additional dimension adds an extra factor of 1, thus the volume of each unit -cube is 1.
SURFACE AREA OF CUBES

Consider the surface area of the cube in dimension and . For . As with volume, this has physical meaning for
, the surface area of a square is really its perimeter, which is 4.
For , the surface area is the total area of the faces which bound the cube. There are 6 faces each with area 1, so the surface area is 6. In general, the dimension cube will have boundary faces, and each face is a cube of dimension , so the surface area (really the hypervolume of the boundary) is .
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OTHER FEATURES
The diagonal of the -cube can be defined to be the distance from -cube is . to . Using the distance formula, one finds that the diagonal of the
The number of corners is fairly easy to count. For , the number of corners is 1, 2, 4, and 8 respectively. Since the -cube can be thought of as two copies of the -cube, one can show by induction that there are corners in the -cube.
Simplex
A simplex is a generalization of a triangle or a pyramid. In dimension the set of -tuples such that and , the simplex is defined to be . This can be thought
of as the corner of the dimension cube where the sum of the coordinates is less than 1. Here are the simplices of dimension :
Volume of spheres in arbitrary dimension

Now, consider a sphere of radius that in . Let dimensions. This is the set of points be the volume of the sphere of radius in such dimensions , respectively). With
(as above, volume means length, area, volume, hypervolume for some careful integration and induction, one finds that
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Now, note that as exponentials).
(and
stays fixed), the volume goes to 0 (since factorial grows faster than
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Arclength
Consider the graph of a function for . The purpose of this module is to find the length of this piece of the curve, known as the arclength of the function As in previous modules, the basic method is to find the arclength element
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and then integrate it:
By zooming in on a portion of the curve, it begins to look like a straight line. Then one can express in terms of the infinitesimal horizontal change and vertical change :
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Now, by the Pythagorean theorem one finds that rule gives that
. A little algebra and the chain
So the arclength of the function
from
to
is given by
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Example Find the arclength of the curve
Hint: recall the facts that
Answer Example Find the arclength of the curve
Answer
Parametric curves
If a curve is defined parametrically, i.e. element can be written as and for , then the arclength
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So the arclength of a parametric curve
for
is given by
Example Find the arclength for a circle of radius . Answer Example Find the arclength for the spiral Answer , for .
Additional Examples
Example Compute the arclength of the curve
Answer Example A catenary is the curve that is formed by hanging a cable between two towers. It is a fact that the rate of change of the slope of a hanging cable is proportional to the rate of change of arclength with respect to . M athematically,
for some constant catenary for
. Use this fact to find the equation of the catenary. Then find the length of the .
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Answer Example Show that the spiral
for Answer
has infinite arclength.
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Surface Area
This module deals with the surface area of solids of revolution. Consider the portion of a curve for revolved about a
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horizontal axis to create a solid. In earlier modules the goal was to find the volume of such a solid, but now the focus is on finding the surface area. As always, the method will be to find the surface area element and integrate it. The surface area element which works well is the thin band shown here:
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Surface area of a cone

The first step towards finding the surface area element is to find the lateral surface area of a more simple solid: the cone. Consider a cone whose base has radius and lateral height (the lateral height is the distance from the tip of the cone to a point on the circumference of the base; see the left diagram below).
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To find the area, consider cutting the cone along the straight dotted line from base circumference to tip and unrolling the cone. The result is a portion of a circle whose radius is , as shown on the right in the diagram above. Note that the circumference of the base of the cone, , becomes the length of arc of the unrolled cone. This means that the unrolled cone is a fraction of the full circle of radius , and that fraction is (the ratio of the circumference of the partial circle to the circumference of the whole circle). Thus the surface area of the cone is .
The surface area of a cone can be used to find the area of a frustum of a cone whose top radius is , bottom radius is , and lateral height (as in the below diagram). The area of this frustum is . Expressed another way, the area is , where is the average of the two radii of the frustum.
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Surface area element

Now, the surface area element can be found. When the curve is partitioned into sufficiently small pieces, the surface area element is just the area of the frustum formed by rotating the arclength element about the axis (see the diagram):
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Thus, the surface area element is , where of rotation, and is the arclength element (i.e. where the axis of rotation is the -axis, one finds that
is the distance from the curve to the axis ). In the (common) case . for about the -axis
Thus, the surface area resulting from revolving the curve is given by
Example Consider the sphere of radius . If the sphere is cut into slices of equal width, which slice has the most surface area?
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Answer Example Consider the surface generated by revolving the curve for about the -axis.
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Find the values of for which the surface has finite surface area. Then find the values of the solid of revolution has finite volume. Answer
for which
Rotations about the y-axis

Suppose we want to know the surface area which results from revolving the curve
about the
-axis. There are two main ways one can go about finding this surface area:
1. Express everything as a function of (including range of inputs), and then use the above formula but with the roles of and switched. 2. Leave things in terms of , but adjust the formula slightly.
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The first method expresses the curve as
where
and
. Then express the surface area element as
Putting it together, the surface area can be expressed as
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Again, this is really just a reuse of the original formula, with the roles of
and
flipped.
The second method is sometimes simpler to apply because it involves less algebra. The main observation to make is that the radius in the surface area element is simply when the curve is revolved around the -axis:
So the surface area element can be written
This integral is with respect to
, and so it should be integrated over the original range of
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Example Compute the surface area of the surface resulting from revolving the curve
about the
-axis:
Answer
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Work
Recall that work is the amount of energy required to perform some action. When the amount of force is constant, work is simply
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For example, if a book weighing 22 Newtons (about 5 pounds) is lifted 2 meters, the total work done is (J is the Joule, which equals one Newton-meter). Consider a situation where the force is not constant. For instance, if one were to lift a weight using a non-negligible rope, there is less rope being pulled up (and hence less force) as the weight goes further up. It is in situations like these that we need a better formula to compute work.
Work element
Computing work when the force is not constant requires integration. As in previous sections, the first step is to determine the work element , and then integrate:
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Because work arises in a variety of situations, there is not one simple formula for the work element. For different applications the work element will look different. In some situations, it is best to consider a small movement , where the force can be thought of as constant for that small movement, which allows the work element to be expressed as .
SPRINGS
The force required to displace a spring varies with the displacement. The further the spring is stretched, the more resistant it becomes to being stretched further. Consider three types of springs: Linear. A spring is linear if the force of resistance grows linearly with the displacement. That is,
for some constant
, which represents the stiffness of the spring.
Hard. A spring is hard if the force of resistance grows faster than linearly with the displacement:
Soft. A spring is soft if the force of resistance grows slower than linearly with the displacement:
Consider for any of these springs what the work element is. When the spring is stretched to , the force of resistance is . For the next infinitesimal amount of stretching , the force can be presumed to be constant:
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Therefore, the work element (i.e. the amount of work to stretch the spring the additional amount is
Example Compute the amount of work it takes to stretch a linear spring from rest (when Answer Example Consider a nonlinear, soft spring which exerts a force of is stretched to 3 meters. Answer Newtons when the spring ) to .
meters. Determine how much work is required to stretch the spring from 1 meter to
PULLING UP A ROPE
In some situations, one must do a little work to determine what as in the above examples. Example Consider a rope which is 100 feet long and density 1 pound/foot. It hangs from a wall which is 50 feet high (so 50 feet of rope runs down the length of the wall and the remaining 50 feet is coiled at the bottom of the wall). How much work (in foot-pounds) is required to pull the rope to the top of the wall? is, and then one can integrate,
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Answer
Work element by slices

In other situations, such as pumping liquid, digging a hole, or piling gravel, a fruitful method for determining the work involved is to consider a slice of the material which is being moved. Determining the weight of the slice, and multiplying by the distance the slice has to be lifted gives the amount of work required for that slice. That is precisely the work element. Integrating over all the slices in the object gives the total amount of work to move that object. Example: pumping liquid Consider an inverted conical tank (so the tip of the cone points downward) with base radius 5 feet and height 10 feet. Water is pumped into the tank through a valve at the tip of the cone:
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How much work is required to fill the tank with water? Leave the weight density of water as the constant . Answer Example: digging a hole Consider two workers digging a hole. How deep should the first worker dig so that each does the same amount of work? Let the weight density of the dirt be the constant , the depth of the hole is , and the cross-sectional area of the hole is the constant (so we assume that the hole does not get any wider or narrower as the workers dig). Answer Example: gravel pyramid Compute the amount of work required to build a pyramid of gravel. Assume the gravel is infinitesimal with weight density , and that the pyramid has a square base of side length , and height :
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Answer Example: rope revisited Consider the rope example from above, but this time suppose total feet of rope are hanging from a foot building, where , and let be the weight density of the rope. Compute the work required to lift the rope to the top of the building. For a different perspective, this time, use a work element which equals the amount of work required to lift an infinitesimal length of rope to the top of the building (this will depend on whether the infinitesimal length of rope is hanging at the beginning or is part of the coil at the bottom of the building). Then integrate along the entire length of rope. Answer
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Multi Variable
Elements
This module deals with various problems that can be modeled using integral calculus. As in the previous sections, the problem will be to find the total accumulation of some quantity , and the method will be to determine a slice of the quantity, the U element , and integrate.
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Mass
MASS OF A ROD
Consider the problem of determining the mass of a rod. Suppose the rod's density varies along the length of the rod (but the rod is uniform in cross section). Let denote the linear density (i.e. the mass per unit of length) of the rod at position :
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Then the mass element
is the density
times the thickness of the slice
, as shown above,
and it follows that the mass of the rod is
MASS OF THE EARTH

Consider the problem of finding the mass of the earth. Suppose the density of the earth is given as a function of the distance from the center of the earth. Assume that there are just three layers (inner core, outer core, and mantle) and that the density is constant within each layer.
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What is the mass element in this case? It is important to note that in this example we are measuring the contribution of a spherical shell to the mass of the earth. This contribution is the volume of the spherical shell multiplied by the density of the shell. M athematically,
Recalling that the surface area of a sphere of radius
is
, we have that the volume element is
and so the mass element is
Example Using the approximate graph of density above, estimate the mass of the earth. Answer
Torque
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Imagine a rod of variable density which is attached to a hinge. The torque at the hinge depends not just on the weight of the rod but on the distribution of the weight. If there were just a mass-less rod with a single point mass, the torque would be . This can be used to determine the torque element by thinking of each slice of the rod as a point mass. What is the torque on such a slice?
First, the torque element is the distance from the hinge, on the slice). The force element is the mass of the slice Finally, as in the previous example, the mass element finds
, times the force element (the force times the gravitational constant . . Putting it all together, one
Integrating this over the length of the rod gives the torque.
Hydrostatic force
The next application is to compute the total force exerted by a tank of fluid on a surface submerged in the tank, often called the hydrostatic force. For a tangible example, consider a large aquarium with a circular glass viewing window (see the diagram below). If the viewing window has radius , and the top of the viewing window is at depth , then the problem is to find the total force of the water on the viewing window.
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As always, the method will be to find the force element and then use integration to find the total force.
(the force on a small strip of the window),
Recall that if pressure is constant across a surface, the force on the surface is Hydrostatic pressure is given by
Note the units:
, which is the correct unit for pressure (force per unit of area). Since
the density of the fluid is assumed to be constant, the pressure only depends on the depth.Therefore, the most logical choice for the force element is a horizontal strip, since the depth, and hence the pressure, will be constant across the strip. Letting denote the area of the strip, we find that the force element is given by
where Example
is the weight density of the fluid and
is the depth of the strip.
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Compute the total force exerted on the circular viewing window in the aquarium shown above. Answer Example Compute the force on the endcap of a full cylindrical tank of radius on its side.
Answer Example Consider a dam in the shape of a trapezoid with height total force exerted on the dam by the water: , top edge and bottom edge . Find the
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Answer
Present value
Consider the problem of determining the present value of some amount of money at a future time. Turning the problem around, first consider the value of an initial amount of money at a future time . Assuming a constant annual nominal interest rate an example of exponential growth, and had solution and continuous compounding, this problem was
where is the time in years. Given some amount of money, , at time , finding its present value is a matter of solving for . In other words, solving for present value in this simple case is the same as finding the initial investment which yields after years of continuous compounding at time is given by interest. Solving this equation gives that the present value of a future amount
Example Find the present value of $1000000 in 30 years, assuming an interest rate of Answer Now consider an income stream, say from a job. If is the rate of income at time , what is the .
present value of that income stream? Let be the present value. Then consider the income earned over a small amount of time years in the future:
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over a small amount of time
years in the future:
(the income element). This small bit of income at time
contributes
to the present value
of the income stream. Thus the present value element is given by
Integrating this over the range of values of value of that income stream. Example
(the time period of the income stream) gives the present
The Bigbucks lottery has an option of either a single lump sum payment today or an annuity which pays a constant amount each year for 20 years. Suppose the annuity pays $3 million a year (for 20 years), and that the interest rate will remain steady at . What is the fair lump sum payout today? Answer
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Averages
Consider the problem of finding the average test < Elements | Home Page | Centr oids and center s of mass > score in a class of 100 students. The answer is to add up all the scores and divide by 100. But what would happen if there were infinitely many students? This module deals with the problem of finding the average value of a function.
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Average value of a function

The definition of the average value of a function over the interval , denoted , is
One way to interpret the average value is to find the rectangle of length area under the curve over the interval . The height of this rectangle is
whose area equals the . Put another way,
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is the height of the horizontal line such that the area above the line and below which is below the line and above following diagram:
equals the area
. These areas are shown in red and blue, respectively, in the
A better formulation of the average value, which will be useful in other situations and higher dimensions, is
This emphasizes that the average value over a region is the integral of the function over the region divided by the volume of that region (in this case, the 1-dimensional volume is just the length of the interval). This generalizes nicely to higher dimensions. If we go down a dimension to the discrete average, if average value of the data is denotes the ith data point out of n, then the
This shares a common feature with the earlier formula for average value. Namely, it is the sum (integral) of the function values over a range of inputs divided by the sum (integral) of 1 over that range of inputs. Example
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Compute the average value of Answer Example Compute the average of . Answer Example and
over the interval
over
. Compute the average of
over
Suppose we are given the density function
for the density of the earth at a distance
from the
center. Find a formula for the average density of the earth, but do not try to evaluate the integral. Answer
Root mean square

There is another type of average of a function called the root mean square. The root mean square of , denoted is defined by
So the root mean square is the square root of the average value of the square of the function. This is a useful metric when the average value of is uninteresting. Example Compute and compare the average value and the root mean square of . Answer
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on the interval
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Multi Variable
Centroids And Centers Of Mass

The motivation for this module are the questions: what is the average of several locations (e.g. cities on a map)? what is the average of an entire region? The centroid and center of mass give answers to these questions. The formulas for the centroid and the center of mass of a region in the plane seem somewhat mysterious for their apparent lack of symmetry. So before giving the formulas, a brief aside is helpful.
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The area element revisited

In future courses, the area element of a region will not be a strip of area but a small rectangle with width and height :
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The area of the region, then, is the limit of the sum of the areas of all these small rectangles as the rectangles get infinitely small. The notation used to express this is called a double integral, written
Think of the double integral as a nested integral:
. The inner integral is
performed first, with respect to (since the is left of the ). Then the result is integrated with respect to . Conceptually, the inner integral is adding up the contribution of a row of boxes, and then the outer integral is adding up the rows:
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Double integrals can be computed in the other order too:
. First the inner integral is
performed with respect to , which adds up the contribution of a column of boxes. Then the outer integral adds up the contribution of the columns:
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Example Express the area of the region bounded by the curves double integral and evaluate the integral. Answer and as a
Centroid
The centroid of a region in the plane is defined to be the point , where is the average coordinate of and is the average -coordinate of . One interpretation is that if the region were cut out of a sheet of uniform density metal and a pin were placed at its centroid, the region would balance on the pin. The centroid is best expressed mathematically using double integrals:
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Suppose the region
is bounded above by the curve and
and below by the curve
, order,
and the intersection points are at
. Then integration is easier in the
and the centroid can be written more explicitly as Centroid of a region The centroid of the region bounded above by given by and below by is
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Similarly,
Note that the denominator in each case is the area of the region. Example Find the centroid of a triangle with vertices at Example Compute the centroid of the upper half circle of radius . and . Answer
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Answer Example Compute the centroid of the quarter circle of radius :
Answer
SYMMETRY
It is important to note that centroids respect symmetry. What that means is that if there is an axis of symmetry (i.e. a line where if we reflect the region about the line we get the same region back), then the centroid must lie on the axis of symmetry. If there is more than one axis of symmetry, then the centroid will lie at the intersection of these axes:
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Center of mass
Now consider a region of the plane cut from a sheet of metal of variable density . Again, the problem is to find the balancing point Again, it is expressed as a double integral: , but in this context it is called the center of mass.
The only difference between these and the centroid formulas is that instead of the area element , the mass element is used (multiplying the area element by the density of that point gives the mass contributed by that small rectangle). Indeed, if the density is constant, then factors out of both the numerator and denominator and cancel, leaving the formula for centroid.
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Note that the denominator for both Example
and
is the mass of the region.
Compute the center of mass of the region bounded above by where the density function is given by :
and below by the x-axis,
Answer
Centroids using point masses

Given a complex region which consists of the union of simpler regions, there is a method for finding the centroid: 1. Find the centroid of each simple region. 2. Replace each region with a point mass at its centroid, where the mass is the area of the region. 3. Find the centroid of these point masses (this is done by taking a weighted average of their x
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and y coordinates).
This is easiest to see with an example: Example Find the centroid of a region consisting of a rectangle of width semicircle of radius on one end: and height which has a
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Answer
Application: Pappus' theorem

One application of the centroid is known as Pappus' theorem , after the Greek mathematician Pappus of Alexandria. It uses the centroid to find the volume and surface area of a solid of revolution. Pappus' theorem Consider the solid which results from rotating the plane region The volume of this solid is equal to the area of travels (as it gets revolved around the axis). about the axis .
times the distance the centroid
The surface area of the solid is equal to the perimeter of centroid travels.
times the distance the
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Example Find the volume and surface area of a torus (i.e. a doughnut) with cross sectional radius radius : and main
Answer
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Moments And Gyrations

This module deals with the moment of inertia and the radius of gyration, which are two properties of an object with physical interpretations.
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Moment of inertia
The moment of inertia of an object, usually denoted , measures the object's resistance to rotation about an axis. To get an intuitive understanding of moment of inertia consider swinging a hammer by its handle (higher moment of inertia, harder to swing) versus swinging a hammer by its head (lower moment of inertia, easier to swing). So moment of inertia depends on both the object being rotated and the axis about which it is being rotated. Hide graphic
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Consider first a particle of mass. The bigger the mass, the more resistant it will be to rotation about an axis. Similarly, the further the particle is from the axis, the more resistant it will be to rotation. For a point mass, the moment of inertia is given by
where
is the distance of the particle from the axis of rotation, and
is the mass of the particle:
Hide graphic
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The next question is how to calculate the moment of inertia when all the mass is not at a single point. As in previous modules, the method will be to break the object into slices of mass, and consider the contribution of each slice to the moment of inertia:
Each slice can be thought of as an individual particle of mass which contributes to the moment of inertia. The contribution of the slice becomes the moment of inertia element :
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Example Consider a solid disc of radius Hide graphic and constant density rotated about its central vertical axis:
Compute its moment of inertia. Answer Example Consider a solid disc of radius Hide graphic and constant density rotated about its center:
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Compute its moment of inertia. Answer Example Consider a rectangle of length and height . Compute the moment of inertia about the vertical axis through its center. Then compute the moment of inertia about the horizontal axis through its center. Hint: use symmetry to find the second answer from the first.
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Answer
Radius of gyration
Another property of an object, radius of gyration , denoted , can be expressed in terms of the moment of inertia. Imagine replacing the object being rotated about an axis by a single point mass being rotated about that same axis. The radius of gyration is the radius at which the point mass has the same moment of inertia as the object. M ore specifically, , and solving for gives
Note that because
we can write
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So the radius of gyration is really the root mean square of the radius.
Higher mass moments

In the centroid module, we computed of mass, .The moment of inertia as part of computing the -coordinate of the center . These are respectively from this module is given by
known as the first mass moment and the second mass moment (first and second referring to the powers of ). There are higher mass moments: , for , as well as the lower mass moment ,
which is just mass. These moments each give more information about how the mass of the object is distributed. This is similar, in a sense, to how knowledge of the derivative of a function at a point leads to an approximation of the function using the Taylor series. The more derivatives one knows, the better the approximation. A logical question, then, is if one knows all the mass moments of an object, can one perfectly describe the distribution of mass?
Additivity of moments
One nice feature of moments is that, being integrals, they are additive. This means that a complex region can be split into simpler regions for which we already know the moment of inertia, and these moments can be added to find the moment of inertia for the entire region. Example Compute the moment of inertia for each of the following figures about a horizontal axis through their centers.
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Which has the greater moment of inertia, the I-shaped figure or the H-shaped figure? Answer
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Multi Variable
Fair Probability
Probability is the study of the likelihood of < Moments and gyr ations | Home Page | Pr obability densities > certain events occurring in a random experiment. A simple example is a coin flip. There are two outcomes: heads (H) or tails (T). If the coin is fair, then the probability of each outcome is , written . Another example is a roll of a standard die. There are six outcomes: 1 through 6. If the die is fair then the probability of each outcome is . In these types of problems, one can find the probability of an event occurring by counting the number of desired outcomes and dividing by the total number of outcomes. Example What is the probability that a pair of dice sums to seven or eleven? Answer Example
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Alice and Bob play a game where they take turns flipping a fair coin, with Alice going first. The first player to get heads wins. What is the probability that Alice wins? Hint: find the probability that Alice wins on her first flip, and the probability that she wins on her second flip, and the probability that she wins on her third flip, etc. Add up all these (infinitely many) probabilities to find the probability that she wins. Second hint: For Alice to win on her second flip, it means that both Alice and Bob got tails on their respective first flips (otherwise the game would have ended in the first round). So the probability of Alice winning on her second flip is
Answer
Uniform distribution
The above examples refer to a fair coin and a fair die. A discrete experiment (i.e. the possible outcomes can be listed) is said to have the uniform distribution if the experiment is fair in the sense that every outcome is equally likely. What about experiments which are not discrete? For instance, a spinner gives a point along the circumference of a circle, and the individual points of the circle cannot be enumerated. Throwing a dart at a circular dartboard likewise has as many outcomes as there are points in the interior of the disk. What does it mean for such an experiment to be fair, i.e., what does the uniform distribution mean in an experiment with continuous outcomes? To answer this question, consider the probability of a range of outcomes of the experiment. So, for instance, what is the probability of the spinner landing in the first quarter of the circle? If the experiment is fair, then this probability should be the same as landing in any other quarter of the circle: :
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Thus an experiment is fair (i.e. has the uniform distribution ) if for any set of outcomes
Here "volume" depends on the dimension of the experiment. For instance, the spinner has dimension 1 (where volume is really just the length) since any point on the circumference can be specified by a single value (say, the angle of the arrow relative to the positive -axis). So a spinner is considered fair if the probability of the arrow landing in a certain range along the circumference equals the length of that range divided by the total circumference of the circle.
LENGTH
Example Find the probability that a randomly chosen angle Answer Example Find the probability that a randomly chosen angle Answer has . has ?
AREA
In two dimensions, volume is really area, and so when computing the probability that a randomly
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chosen point in a region
in the plane lies within the region
, we have
Example A dartboard is circular with radius 9 inches:
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The bullseye is a small circle at the center of the board. Find the radius of the bullseye so that the probability of hitting it is (assuming a throw hits the board uniformly at random). Answer Example Find the probability that a randomly chosen point in a square lies within the circle inscribed in the square:
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Answer Example Find the probability that a randomly chosen point in a circle lies in the equilateral triangle inscribed in the circle:
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Hint: the area of an equilateral triangle of side length
is
Answer There are some probability problems that do not seem geometric in nature but can be solved by graphing the possible outcomes and taking the ratio of the areas. Example Xander and Yolanda want to meet up to study calculus. Each friend will arrive at the library at some random time between 5 pm and 6pm, wait 20 minutes for the other person, and then leave if the other person does not arrive in that time. Find the probability that the friends successfully meet up. Hint: Let be the number of minutes after 5 pm that Xander arrives and be the number of minutes after 5 pm that Yolanda arrives. Now plot the possible arrival times as a region in the plane and determine the region which corresponds to them successfully meeting up. Answer
VOLUME
Finally, in dimension 3, volume is volume as we traditionally know it. In this case, we imagine picking a point from within a 3D region and know the probability that the point lies within some subset of that region. Example Find the probability that a randomly chosen point from within a cube lies within the inscribed sphere:
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Answer Example What is the probability that a randomly chosen point in a ball lies within 10% of the boundary (as measured by radius)? Answer
Buffon needle problem

The Buffon needle problem, named after the Count of Buffon, asks for the probability that a needle of length , dropped uniformly at random onto a sheet with parallel lines spaced units apart, will cross a line.
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To simplify the problem, consider two parameters which determine whether the needle crosses: 1. 2. , the distance from the left tip of the needle to the next line to its right , the angle that the needle makes with a vertical line:
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Note that and . Now, for what values of and is there a crossing? Note that by right triangle trigonometry, the horizontal distance from the left end of the needle to the right end of the needle is :
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Thus, there is a crossing if , and there is no crossing if . Graphing this inequality shows that the region below the curve (shown in purple) is where a crossing occurs. The region above the curve is where a crossing does not occur.
Dropping a needle at random is like randomly picking a point in this rectangle. Thus, the probability of
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a random needle creating a crossing equals the probability of randomly picking a point below the curve in the above rectangle. That probability is given by dividing the area under the curve by the area of the entire rectangle.
< Moments and gyr ations | Home Page | Pr obability densities >
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Probability Densities
The last module dealt with the uniform distribution, < Fair pr obability | Home Page | Expectation and var iance > where any one outcome is as likely as another. This module deals with experiments whose outcomes have different probabilities. For example, consider an unfair coin which has a probability of landing heads and a probability of landing tails. Another example is time spent on hold with customer service, where it is more likely that the call is answered in the first hour than in the second hour.
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Random variable and probability density function (PDF)

A random variable is a function whose output should be thought of as the outcome of an experiment. Associated with a random variable is a probability density function (PDF) , which is defined by . That is, the probability that the random variable falls in a certain range of values is given by integrating the PDF over that range of values. Phrased another way, we can think of probability as the quantity we want to compute over a
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certain range of values, and the probability element is given by
Example Consider the spinner from the last module. The outcome of a spin is some angle (relative to the positive -axis) between 0 and . If is the random variable which gives the output of a spin, then
since the spinner was assumed to be fair. This holds for all PDF is
. Then the associated
NOTE
Sometimes a PDF is only defined on a certain domain . can be thought of as the set of all for for not in that . possible outcomes of the experiment . In this case, it is assumed that
domain. So another way of defining the PDF for the spinner is
Properties of a probability density function

The following are defining properties of a PDF. In other words, a function if and only if it satisfies these properties. 1. 2. for all . . is a PDF on the domain
The first property is necessary since probabilities must be non-negative. The second property reflects the fact that the random variable associated with must have some outcome in the domain (since 1. is the set of all possible outcomes), and so integrating over all of these outcomes should give
NOTE
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If
is defined on some specific domain
, then the integral over that specific domain should
equal 1. This is because Example Find the value of the constant Answer
outside of that domain, as mentioned in the above note.
so that
for all
is a PDF.
Several specific density functions

UNIFORM DENSITY
Hinted at above and in the previous module, the uniform density function (or uniform distribution) on is given by (and if is not in ):
M ore generally, the uniform distribution on the domain
(whatever the dimension) is given by
In dimension 0, where outcomes are discrete (as in the rolling of a die or the flipping of a coin), remember that volume is just counting. So in this case the probability of a particular outcome is
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where is the number of outcomes in the domain coin flip).
(e.g.
for the roll of a die;
for a
EXPONENTIAL DENSITY
Another density function used to model many common experiments is the exponential density function . This is actually a whole family of density functions given by for some constant. The reason a parameter to model experiments with a time outcome. and
is used is that the exponential density is often used
Example Show that the exponential density function. Answer Example Consider a call made to customer service at Acme company. The number of minutes spent on hold before the call is answered is often modeled with an exponential density function (for ) satisfies the properties of a density
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Find, in terms of Example
, the probability that the waiting time for a call is less than 30 minutes. Answer
Again consider customer service call waiting time at Acme company, and again assume an exponential density function
Suppose half of all customers are answered within 5 minutes. Find a call takes more than 10 minutes to be answered. Answer
and then find the probability that
GAUSSIAN DENSITY
The last probability density function is the 'Gaussian , or normal, density function. This is an important density function and is expanded on in the next module. Like the exponential, the Gaussian density function usually has parameters (see the next module), but in its simplest form, the Gaussian is given by
The Gaussian has all real as its domain, but because it tails off so quickly in both directions, the probability of getting values far from the center (in this case ) is very small.
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Multi Variable
Expectation And Variance

When performing an experiment, it is useful to know what < Pr obability densities | Home Page | Sequences > the expected outcome will be as well as how much variation one can expect among the outcomes. The notions of expected outcome and variation are made formal in this module by the terms expectation ,variance, and standard deviation . This module will also show some of the connections of these statistical metrics with the applications of the previous modules.
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Expectation
Consider a random variable . The expectation of with probability density function (PDF) , is defined by defined on some domain , denoted by
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where is the probability element. The expectation of is sometimes called the mean of , the expected value, or the first moment. In some books it is denoted . It is best to think of the expectation as the number one gets by repeating the experiment many times and taking the average of the outputs. The notion of expectation is more general than the mean because one can also take the expectation of a function of . The expectation of is defined by
Example Find the expectation of Answer Example Recall that the random variable with is for is said to have the exponential distribution if the PDF associated , where is some constant. Find the expectation of the ). , where is uniformly distributed on the interval .
exponential distribution (in terms of Answer
Variance
Consider a random variable with PDF . The variance of , denoted , is defined by
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In the notation of the lecture,
Note: it requires some calculation to show the second equality above holds. Either of the above expressions may be taken as the definition of variance, and the second one might be slightly simpler for the sake of computation. Justification Example Compute the variance of the exponential density function Answer .
Standard deviation
Consider a random variable defined by with PDF . Then the standard deviation of , denoted , is
EXAMPLE
Find the standard deviation of , where is uniformly distributed over . Answer
Interpretations
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If one interprets the PDF 1. The mean, 2. The variance, . 3. The standard deviation,
as the density of a rod at location
, then:
, gives the center of mass of the rod. , gives the moment of inertia about the line , gives the radius of gyration about the line .
The normal distribution

A random variable is said to have the normal distribution , or to be normally distributed, with mean and standard deviation if its PDF is of the form
Due to its ubiquity throughout the sciences, the normal distribution is one of the most well-known probability distributions. However, because its PDF does not have an elementary anti-derivative, it is not easy to calculate exact probabilities associated with the normal distribution. Instead, there are is a rule of thumb which can be used.
THE 68-95-99.7 RULE

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Given a random variable following hold: 1. 2. 3.
which is normally distributed with mean
and standard deviation
, the
. . .
In other words, 68% of samples will fall within 1 standard deviation of the mean. 95% of samples will fall within 2 standard deviations of the mean. And 99.7% of samples will fall within 3 standard deviations. These rules, along with the symmetry of the normal PDF, can be used to approximate many probabilities relating to the normal distribution:
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EXAMPLE
The height of men in a certain population is normally distributed with mean inches and standard deviation inches. If a man is chosen at random from the population, what is the probability that he is taller than 72 inches? Answer
< Pr obability densities | Home Page | Sequences >
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Sequences
The remainder of the course is a look at discrete < Expectation and var iance | Home Page | Differ ences > calculus, which is a study of all the previous sections (functions, derivatives, integrals) applied to a different kind of function: sequences. A sequence is a function, but instead of taking any real number as input, a sequence takes an integer as input.
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Sequence
A sequence is a function from the non-negative integers usual functional notation is sometimes replaced with to the real numbers . The . There are several ways to define a
sequence. Here are three of the most common ways, demonstrated on the powers of 2. 1. An explicit formula gives as a function of , i.e. . This is usually the most
convenient, since it typically gives the most information about the sequence. e.g. for . 2. A recursion relation gives as a function of previous terms in the sequence. Note that
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some initial conditions must be given as well.
. e.g.
; . 3. Finally, listing terms can be used if no explicit or recursive formula is available. This is sometimes used in experimental settings so that one can study the terms and look for a pattern. e.g. . Example Write out the first six terms of the sequence defined by pattern to try to find an explicit formula for . Answer ; . Look for a
Limits of sequences
Recall that limits of functions came in two flavors. First, there were limits of the form The second type of limits were of the form . .
Only the second type of limit is sensible for a sequence. (To see why the first type of limit does not make sense for sequences, go back to the definition of a limit.) The definition of for sequences is the same as for continuous functions: The Limit of a Sequence We say that
if for any
there exists
such that for all
In other words, the sequence sufficiently large . If the limit . Intuitively, a sequence
has limit if gets arbitrarily close to for exists, then the sequence is said to converge to
has a limit if for any band around
, there is some point where all the terms
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of
are within the band around
Recall that Newton's method defined a sequence of numbers defined by the recursion relation
Here, the sequence hopefully converged to a root of the function
. This gives an example of an
application where it is useful to know about the convergence of a sequence. Example Let Answer Example Let Answer . Find , if the limit exists. If the limit does not exist, explain why. . Find , if the limit exists. If the limit does not exist, explain why.
Methods for computing limits

M any of the methods for computing limits of continuous functions carry over to computing limits of sequences. In particular, all of the big-O notation still applies.
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Example Compute the limit of the sequence Answer .
Monotone, bounded sequences

In general, it can be difficult to find the limit of a sequence, but for certain sequences it is possible to prove that the limit exists. A sequence is monotone increasing if it is non-decreasing, i.e., monotone decreasing if it is non-increasing, i.e., monotone increasing or monotone decreasing is monotone. . A sequence is . A sequence that is either
A sequence is bounded above if there exists some real number such that Similarly, a sequence is bounded below if there exists a real number such that . A sequence is bounded if it is both bounded above and bounded below. Monotone Convergence Theorem If a sequence Example Let be the sequence defined by ; is bounded and monotone, then the sequence converges.
for all for all
. Show that the sequence converges by
using the M onotone Convergence Theorem. Answer
Recursion relations and limits

When a sequence is defined by a recursion relation and the limit of the sequence exists, one can find the limit by simply taking the limit of both sides of the recursion relation and solving. This is best demonstrated by example. Example
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Example Find the limit Answer Example Find , where ; , as in the previous example.
by expressing
as a limit of a recursively defined sequence
which begins
Assume that the limit exists. Answer Example Find Answer The golden ratio, often denoted . Assume the limit exists.
appears in many settings, both man made and natural. The golden ratio is also deeply connected with the Fibonacci numbers, as we will see in this example and in the future. Example The Fibonacci sequence, is defined by the recursion relation and initial conditions
So the first few Fibonacci numbers are
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Show that
You may assume that the limit of the sequence exists. Hint: Observe that
Answer
< Expectation and var iance | Home Page | Differ ences >
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Multi Variable
Differences
What is the derivative of a sequence? The original definition will < Sequences | Home Page | Discr ete calculus > not work because change in input is discrete and so one cannot take the limit as the change in input goes to 0. Instead, using the interpretation of the derivative as a rate of change leads to two different discrete derivatives. They are called difference operators, and are defined below.
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Difference operators
The discrete analog of the derivative is the difference operator, defined as follows. Difference operators Given a sequence , the forward difference of , denoted , is defined by
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The backward difference of
, denoted by
, is defined by
This can be interpreted as the change in output over the change in input:
which resembles the definition for the derivative of a continuous function, but without the limit. If we plot the points of the sequence as if we were graphing the function, and then connect the dots with linear segments, then the forward difference can also be interpreted as the slope between adjacent points:
Example The sequence has forward difference sequence
Example Find the forward difference sequence of the Fibonacci sequence . Answer
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Example Find the forward difference of the powers of two: Answer .
PRODUCT RULES
These difference operators have their own versions of the differentiation rules for continuous functions. For example, there is a product rule. For sequences and , define the new sequence by . Then
This should be reminiscent of the product rule
Higher order difference operators

Just as the derivative of a function gives another function, the difference operator of a sequence gives another sequence . Then one can take the difference operator of which gives yet another sequence . And so on. Consider, for instance, the sequence for . Then
A little bit of pattern matching shows the following:
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Just as taking higher derivatives of a polynomial eventually gives 0, taking higher order difference operators of a polynomial eventually gives 0. M oreover, if is a polynomial of degree , then . Note that the power rule is not quite the same as for regular derivatives (e.g. ). This is an artifact of the binomial expansion. The next section shows a convenient way to avoid these problems.
Falling powers
The falling power is defined to be
The falling power can be thought of as a discrete version of the monomial falling power is that
. One nice feature of the
which is the familiar power rule. Example Express Answer in terms of falling factorials and use the power rule above to find .
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Discrete
With the falling power in hand, consider the discretized version of the exponential function, found by replacing the usual monomials with in the Taylor series for the exponential:
If one evaluates this at to find the "discrete ", note that all the terms after the first two disappear because of the factor in all the higher terms. Thus, the discrete version of is 2. This is consistent with the earlier note that acted like the exponential function (it is its own discrete derivative). Indeed, the above series is , which can be seen by noting it is simply the binomial series evaluated at .
Sequence operators
Just as there were operators on functions (e.g. integration, differentiation, logarithm, exponentiation), there are operators on sequences: Operator Identity Left shift Right shift Forward difference Backward difference shifts twice, etc. Notation What it does Notes
HIGHER DERIVATIVES
The expressions for the forward and backward differences in terms of and can be used to compute the higher derivatives of sequences more easily than it would be to compute them by hand. For example, the third derivative can be found by expanding the expression as a binomial:
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M ore generally, the
th derivative can be written similarly:
INDEFINITE INTEGRAL
As shown above, the forward difference can be expressed in terms of the operators and :
A logical question is to ask whether it is possible to take the anti-difference, just as there is the antiderivative for functions. The claim is that
This looks reminiscent of the geometric series. By taking the inverse of algebra), we have
(and a few liberties with the
by thinking of
as the reciprocal of
in a sense (because
acts like 1), and applying
the geometric series. This derivation is not rigorous, but the above formula does give the antidifference (up to an additive constant), so long as the sequence is eventually 0. This is just a hint of the calculus of sequences, which we explore a little bit more in the modules to come.
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Discrete Calculus
The previous two modules have laid the groundwork for the discretization, or digitization, of calculus: 1. 2. 3. 4. The The The The discrete discrete discrete discrete version version version version
< Differ ences | Home Page | Numer ical ODEs >
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of a function is a sequence. of the derivative is the difference operator. of the integral is the sum. of a differential equation is a recurrence relation.
This module mostly deals with #3, the integral of a discrete function. For continuous functions, there was the Fundamental Theorem of Integral Calculus which made computing integrals easy under certain conditions. Essentially, it said that the integral of the derivative is the function itself, evaluated at the endpoints. The discrete version says the same thing: The Discrete Fundamental Theorem of Integral Calculus (FTIC) Given a sequence ,
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and
Proof sketch Example Note that
Use this, along with FTIC, to find
Answer Example Use the fact that
along with the FTIC to find
Answer Example Let denote the Fibonacci sequence defined by

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Let
denote the Fibonacci sequence defined by
Note that
by rearranging the above recursion relation. Use this, along with the FTIC, to find
Answer
POWER RULE FOR FALLING POWERS

Recall from the previous module that the falling power
has a nice power rule for the difference:
By running this in reverse, we can find the anti-difference (or antiderivative) of the falling power, which is very similar to the power rule for integration:
where is a constant. Using this, along with the FTIC, allows one to find closed formulas for the sum of polynomials. Example Using the power rule and the FTIC, find
Answer
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Answer Example Find
Answer Example With a little algebra (shown in the previous module), one finds that
Use this fact, along with FTIC, to find
Answer
Integration by parts
There is also a discrete version of integration by parts. First, the following product rule can be established for the forward difference:
Details Then, just like for continuous functions, one can integrate both sides (i.e. sum both sides), rearrange, and apply FTIC to find
Example
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Find
Answer
Differential equations
The discrete version of a differential equation is a recurrence relation. This is an equation relating one term of a sequence with one or more previous terms in the sequence. In this context, the shift operator acts like the derivative. Example Consider the linear first-order recurrence relation
which can be written as
or, with some rearrangement,
By inspection, one can see the solution thought of as an initial condition). Example
, where
is some constant (it can be
Now, consider using the following linear first-order difference equation
This is reminiscent of the differential equation
, considered earlier in the course. Recall that
, and so this difference relation can be written With a little more rearranging one finds
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which is almost identical to the equation from the previous example, but with Therefore, the solution is . Compare this to the solution in the continuous case, which was
replaced by
When
, we have the solution
If we let
in the discrete difference equation, we have
which again shows that
is the discrete version of the exponential function
Fibonacci numbers revisited

We can take the recurrence relation for the Fibonacci numbers:
and rearrange it to be rewritten in terms of the shift operator:
Note that the solutions to the equation
are
So we can factor the operator
to see that
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It is a fact that solutions to this equation are combinations (that is, a sum) of solutions to
The solutions to these equations are
So we have that
for some constants and , which depend on the initial conditions of the sequence. To find those constants, we can plug in convenient values of and solve. Letting , we have
Letting
, we have
So we find
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This gives an explicit, closed form equation for the Fibonacci numbers:
< Differ ences | Home Page | Numer ical ODEs >
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Numerical OD Es
The previous few modules have discretized functions, < Discr ete calculus | Home Page | Numer ical integr ation > derivatives, and integrals. This module shows how discrete methods can be used to approximate solutions to problems in the continuous realm. One such application was Newton's method for approximating roots of functions, seen back in Linear Approximations. This module deals with approximating solutions of continuous differential equations. In certain situations, differential equations can be solved exactly. For example, a separable differential equation
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is solved by rearranging and integrating, as seen in Antidifferentiation. A linear first order differential equation
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is solved by an application of the product rule, as seen in M ore differential equations. However, there are many differential equations of the form
which cannot be solved exactly by the above methods. This is the situation where techniques known as numerical ordinary differential equations can be used to approximate a solution. There are three methods covered in this module: 1. Euler's method 2. M idpoint method 3. Runge-Kutta method
Euler's method
Euler's method uses a difference equation to approximate the solution of an initial value problem. M ore specifically, given the differential equation , and initial value , Euler's method approximates for some .
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One way to visualize the problem is to imagine a river where the water is going in different directions at different locations. If one drops something that floats (perhaps a very small rock, or a duck) at different locations in the river, where would the object end up further down the river?
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To compute the approximation, first a positive integer intervals, giving the sequence of time points . Then there is a corresponding sequence the initial condition and each subsequent
is chosen, and the , where
axis is split into . The time step is where is
is an approximation of
, given by the update rule
This recurrence is sensible by considering the discretization of the original differential equation:
and then rearranging. This process is using a linearization at each point to get to the next point ,
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then this is repeated to get the next point, and so on:
Remember that a linearization is only good when the change in input, in this case, is small. Therefore, a bigger value of gives a better approximation, but requires more computation. Example Let with ? . Use Euler's method with left as a variable to approximate .
What happens as Answer Example
Consider the differential equation
Use Euler's method to estimate
, where
, the initial conditions are
and
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and the step size is Answer
TAYLOR SERIES PERSPECTIVE

If we think of as a function of , and expand the Taylor series of about , we have
so Euler's method can be seen as taking the first order Taylor approximation and using it to form the recursion relation. The above equation shows that the error for a single step is in , so the error over all steps is
Midpoint method
Another method for solving the differential equation
is known as the midpoint method. There is still an update rule which is similar to the one used in Euler's rule, but the function is evaluated at a different point. The idea is to consider the point where Euler's rule would have taken us, and find the midpoint of that with our starting point. Use that midpoint as the point to evaluate in the update rule. As described, it is a little bit complicated, but with some extra notation and a diagram it becomes clearer. Let . So is the quantity which would be added to in the update rule for Euler's rule:
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Then the eponymous midpoint which is used in the update rule is
So the update rule for the midpoint method is
The midpoint method is a bit more complicated than Euler's method, but it has a benefit. The midpoint method is a second order approximation, and as a result the error turns out to be for an individual step, and hence method of approximation. for the full approximation process. Therefore, it is a more accurate
Runge-Kutta method
The final method for solving the above differential equation is called the Runge-Kutta method. It is a
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fourth order approximation. Its error for an individual step is
and for the whole process is
. This makes it the most accurate model of the three in this module. It is difficult to describe in an intuitive manner other than to say it is a sort of average of Euler's method, the midpoint method, and other methods. The update rule is as follows:
Note that method.
is the increase used in Euler's method, and
is the increase used in the M idpoint
Comparison of methods
We already know that Euler's method is the most basic, then the M idpoint method, and finally RungeKutta. We should expect, then, that Runge-Kutta should give the best approximation, followed by the M idpoint method, followed by Euler's method. Example Use each of the three methods to approximate the solution of
with initial conditions
(we already know that
because we have solved this differential equation several times

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already), using a step size of Answer
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Numerical Integration
The topic of this module is the discretization of the definite < Numer ical ODEs | Home Page | Ser ies > integral. How does one approximate the definite integral of a function which does not have an easily computable anti-derivative? The answer is with finite sums, which is the discrete analog of the definite integral. Recall that one interpretation for the definite integral is area under the curve. The goal is to find a finite sum which approximates the area under the curve. There are three common techniques for making this approximation: Riemann sums, trapezoid rule, and Simpson's rule. Each gives an approximation of the integral . Another way to think about this problem (and the practical applications) is to consider some sporadic sample points, thought of as a sequence
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Corresponding to these sample points is the sequence of function values
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where
. The goal is to approximate the definite integral of the underlying function
using
these function values. Of course, in real world applications the function may not be continuous, let alone a familiar function with an easily computed anti-derivative. The method of numerical integration gives an approximation of the definite integral in this situation with imperfect information. Example Consider the problem of estimating the number of people who pass through a certain busy subway station each day. One could sit in the station for the entire day and count every person, or one could get an estimate by going in periodically and counting the number of people who come in over a short time. This gives a sampling of the rate of passengers entering the station at different times:
The definite integral of the rate of passenger arrival gives the total number of passengers using the station that day:
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Riemann Sums
The most rudimentary approximation is given by Riemann sums, which should be familiar from the definition of the definite integral. The left Riemann sum uses the left endpoint of the th subinterval as the sample point to compute the height of the the th rectangle:
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Thus, the area of the
th rectangle is. So the left Riemann sum is given by
The right Riemann sum uses the right endpoint of the th subinterval to compute the height of the th rectangle:
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In this case, the area of the
th rectangle is
. So the right Riemann sum is given by
An improvement on the left and right Riemann sums, called the trapezoid rule, is given in the next section.
Trapezoid rule
The trapezoid rule uses trapezoids instead of rectangles to approximate the area above each subinterval:
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Recall that the area of a trapezoid with bases (parallel segments) of length area . The area of the th trapezoid, then, is rule gives the approximation:
and , with height has . Thus, the trapezoid
If the sample points are evenly spaced uniformly, then the formula for the trapezoid rule simply becomes
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where
is the width of each trapezoid. Note that the trapezoid rule is the average of the left
and right Riemann sums.
Simpson's rule
Think about how the previous approximations interpolate the function . The Riemann sum is a piecewise constant approximation (also called a step function). The trapezoid rule is a piece-wise linear approximation. The logical next step is to use piece-wise quadratic approximations. That is how Simpson's rule works. Another way to think of it is that Simpson's rule will compute the area under a parabola exactly (whereas Riemann sums and trapezoid rule will have errors in general). One way that Simpson's rule differs from the above rules is that the sample points must be evenly spaced. Let be the distance between sample points. The Simpson's rule approximation is given by
Here,
must be even.
Derivation
EXAMPLE
Approximate the definite integral with using (uniformly spaced) right and left
Riemann sums; trapezoid rule; and Simpson's rule. Here is a table of pertinent values to make the computation easier:
0 1
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2 3 4 Answer
Errors bounds
With any approximation, it is good to get some idea of how far off the approximation is from the true value. Let be the error using the trapezoidal rule, and be the error from using Simpson's rule. Using advanced calculus beyond the scope of this course, one can bound these errors as follows.
where
is the maximum value of
on the interval
where
on the interval
.
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Series
The previous module discussed finite sums as the < Numer ical integr ation | Home Page | Conver gence tests 1 > discrete analog of definite integrals with finite bounds. Then, logically, the discrete analog of improper integrals with infinite bounds should be infinite sums, referred to as infinite series or just series when there is no confusion.
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Definition of infinite series

Recall that when computing definite integrals with bounds at infinity, one replaces the infinite bound with a variable and then takes the limit:
For infinite series, the definition is analogous:
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The expression
is called the
th partial sum of the series
. Then a series converges if
the sequence of partial sums converges. If the sequence of partial sums does not converge, we say the series diverges. Example Give the first few terms of the sequence of partial sums for the infinite series
Answer
Taylor series revisited

Recall some of the Taylor series from earlier modules:
These provide many examples of series which not only converge, but can be evaluated exactly.
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Example Compute Answer Example Compute Answer . .
Classifying series
There are some series which cannot be evaluated exactly, though it is known that the series converges. For example, the series
converges, but it is not known what the exact value is (though one can calculate as many digits as one likes). This is in contrast with an apparently similar series,
for which an exact value is known (though the proof of this value is beyond the scope of this course). Yet another similar series, called the harmonic series, diverges, as will be shown in the next module.
There are two questions then. First, does a series converge or not? Second, if it does converge, to
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what does it converge? This course deals mostly with the first question, in this module and the next few modules. M ore advanced analysis classes can help answer the second question.
WHEN INTUITION FAILS

Determining the convergence of a series using intuition can be dangerous. As one example of how intuition can fail, consider what happens when we plug into the series for :
Although is not in the radius of convergence for this series, it turns out that this series still converges. Now, consider what happens if we multiply both sides by :
Adding this equation together with the above one, some of the terms cancel and some combine to show that
Now, notice that this series has all the terms of the series for , but in slightly different order. And yet, the series evaluates to a different value. That is certainly counter intuitive. Perhaps even more alarming, the terms of the series for can be rearranged so that the resulting series evaluates to any real number. The takeaway is that we must tread carefully and not trust intuition but instead rely on logic.
The nth term test for divergence

The first, and usually simplest, test for divergence of a series is the nth term test. The nth term test for divergence If , then the series diverges.
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Proof This test applies to all series, and it is easy to apply (just take the limit of the terms of the series). However, many of the series encountered in this course will have terms which go to 0 in the limit, in which case the test is inconclusive (see the caveat below). Example Show that the series
diverges. Answer Example Show that the series
diverges. Answer Example Show that the series
diverges. Answer
CAVEAT
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This is not a test for convergence! In particular, if
, then the test is inconclusive (the
series might converge or diverge). If the test is inconclusive, one of the other tests from the upcoming modules must be used. In logical terms, this says that the converse of the nth term test does not hold. On the other hand, the contrapositive does hold:
(The contrapositive of a true statement is always true, but the converse is not always true). Example What does the nth term test say about the series Answer Example What does the nth term test say about the series ?
Answer Example Suppose the series
converges, and that series
for all
. What, if anything, can be said about the convergence of the
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Answer
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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Convergence Tests 1
Unlike the nth term test for divergence from the last module, < Ser ies | Home Page | Conver gence tests 2 > this module gives several tests which, if successfully applied, give a definitive answer of whether a series converges or not. A common feature of the tests in this module is that they use a comparison.
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Integral test for convergence and divergence

This is a test which can definitively tell whether a series converges or diverges. However, it can be harder to apply. Integral test for convergence and divergence If is a positive, decreasing function, then for any integer ,
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The double arrow both diverge.
means if and only if. So the series and integral either both converge, or they
To see why, visualize the series as a sum of rectangles with base 1 and height rectangles are drawn to the right of the curve
. If these
, then the result is the following figure. Each
rectangle is labeled with its area. The combined area of the rectangles completely contains the area under , which establishes the inequality shown:
On the other hand, if the rectangles are drawn to the left of the curve establishes the inequality shown:
, then all the rectangles , which
lie below the curve. Their combined area is less than the area under the curve
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Combining these two inequalities gives
If the integral diverges, then the series diverges (by the first inequality). And if the integral converges, then the series converges (by the second inequality). This establishes the integral test. Example Use the integral test to determine if
converges or diverges. Answer Example
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Use the integral test to determine if
The p-series test

The next example is important enough that it gets its own name: the p-series. This makes use of the pintegrals that we computed earlier. Example Find the values of for which the series
converges. Answer The p-series test The p-series converges if and only if .
HARMONIC SERIES
The series , known as the harmonic series, diverges by to the p-series test. This is a significant fact to keep in mind because the harmonic series diverges even though the terms of the series go to 0. Thus, the harmonic series is a demonstration that the nth term test is a test for divergence only and cannot be used to show a series converges.
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Note that the harmonic series is a sort of boundary between convergence and divergence. The series diverges, but the series converges. Example The p-series test proves the convergence of two examples from the last module: Example Determine the values of for which the series and .
converges. Answer
Comparison test
The integral test compared a series to its related integral. This test compares one series to another. Comparison test Let 1. if 2. if and be positive sequences such that converges, then diverges, then converges. diverges. for all . It follows that
In other words, if a series is smaller than a convergent series, then it converges too. If a series is bigger than a divergent series, then it diverges too.
CAVEAT
It is critical that the inequality be in the correct direction. A series which is larger than a convergent series might converge or diverge. A series which is smaller than a divergent series might converge or diverge.
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Example Show that Answer Example Show that diverges.
converges. Answer Example Determine whether
converges or diverges. Hint: try for a rough upper bound or lower bound on gives the right comparison. Answer
and see which one
Limit test
The final test of this module is a slightly different type of comparison. Recall that when comparing two functions and to see which is "bigger" asymptotically, one computes the limit
If this limit is infinite, then is bigger. If the limit is 0, then is bigger. If the limit is where , then the two functions are roughly equal (up to a constant multiple). It is this third
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case that is used for this test (sometimes called the Limit comparison test): Limit test Let series and be positive series. If and and , then the
either both converge or both diverge.
The key to the limit test is finding a suitable sequence
which is approximately equal to
in the
limit. Often, will be a ratio, in which case the lower order terms in the numerator and denominator can be dropped, and what is left will be . Ideally, it will be easy to see if converges or diverges. Finally, one must check that Example Show that .
diverges. Answer Example Determine whether converges or diverges. Answer

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Convergence Tests 2
This module deals with the root test and the ratio < Conver gence tests 1 | Home Page | Absolute and conditional > test for convergence. Unlike the tests from the previous module, the tests of this module can be applied without having to find a good series to compare. Recall that the geometric series
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converges to test.
provided that
. This fact is at the heart of both the root test and the ratio
Root test
The Root test
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Given a series
, with all
, let
If
, then
converges. If
, then
diverges. Finally, if
then the test is inconclusive. Justification The root test works best when the term involves an nth power, or can be expressed as an nth power, although it can be used in other situations as well. Example Determine if
converges or diverges. Answer Example Determine if
converges or diverges. Answer Example Use the root test on the p-series
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Answer
Ratio test
The Ratio Test Given a series , with all , let
If If Justification
, then the series
converges. If
, then the series
diverges.
, then the test is inconclusive (the series might converge or diverge).
The ratio test works best when involves exponential functions and factorials, since in these situations there is a lot of cancellation. It does not work well with ratios of polynomials, because the test is inconclusive. Example Determine if the series
converges or diverges. Answer Example Determine if the series
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converges or diverges. Answer Example Show that the ratio test is inconclusive on the p-series Answer Example Determine if the series .
Summary of methods for a positive series

There is no foolproof method for determining the convergence or divergence of a series. However, here is a rough guide for tests to try. Given a series , where for all : 1. Do the terms go to 0? If (If , then by the nth term test, the series diverges. where is constant? Does involve factorial?
, then the test is inconclusive).
2. Does involve exponential functions like Then the ratio test should be used. 3. Is of the form for some sequence
? Then use the root test.
4. Does ignoring lower order terms make look like a familiar series (e.g. p-series or geometric series)? Then use the comparison test or the limit test. 5. Does the sequence look easy to integrate? Then use the integral test.
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Absolute And Conditional

Up until now, the convergence tests covered by this < Conver gence tests 2 | Home Page | Power ser ies > course have only covered series with positive terms. What happens when a series has some positive and some negative terms? This module describes some tools for determining the convergence or divergence of such a series.
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Alternating series test

One particular type of series is fairly simple to test for convergence. A series is of the form , where its terms are alternately positive and negative. Alternating Series Test An alternating series with decreasing terms converges if and only if is alternating if it is a positive sequence. In other words, a series is alternating if
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. The intuition behind this test is that if the terms are alternating, decreasing, and go to zero, then the partial sums of the series gradually zero in on the true value. The first partial sum is greater than the true value, the second partial sum is less than the true value, and so on:
Example The series
is alternating. Its terms are decreasing, and the terms go to zero, so by the alternating series test, the series converges.
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Example Determine if
converges. Answer Example Determine if
converges. Answer
Conditional and absolute convergence

Consider the two previous examples. Note that both However, if these series were not alternating, then does not converge (comparison with the harmonic series and ). converge.
still converges (it is geometric), whereas
These series demonstrate a distinction between two types of convergence. Absolute and Conditional Convergence The series A series converges absolutely if converges conditionally if converges. converges, but diverges.
In other words, a series is conditionally convergent if it is convergent but not absolutely convergent.
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Example Using this terminology, the series
converges absolutely, but
converges conditionally. Example Find the values of for which the alternating p-series
diverges, converges conditionally, and converges absolutely. Answer Example Determine if
converges, and if so, whether it is conditional or absolute convergence. Answer Example
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Determine if
converges, and if so, whether it is conditional or absolute convergence. Answer
Absolute convergence test

Some series are not strictly alternating, but have some positive and some negative terms, sporadically. In this situation, it can be difficult to determine whether the series converges directly, but the following test sometimes makes the determination easier. Absolute Convergence Test If the series converges, then converges. In other words, if a series
converges absolutely, then the series converges. Justification Example Determine if

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Single Variable
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Multi Variable
Power Series
Sequences can be thought of as the discretization of a function. This module goes in the opposite direction: turning a sequence into a function called a power series.
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Power series
Given a sequence , the power series associated with is the infinite sum .
EXAMPLE
The power series associated with the sequence . is the function
EXAMPLE
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All of the Taylor series encountered earlier in the course are power series. For instance, the Taylor series for the exponential is the power series associated with the sequence .
EXAMPLE
The Lucas numbers and , and are like the Fibonacci numbers but with different initial conditions. . So the sequence begins given by the power series .
Find the closed-form function
This is known in the field of combinatorics as the generating function for the sequence Answer
These power series have lots of useful applications in enumeration and asymptotic analysis, among other things. But the rest of this module will deal with convergence. Given a sequence , for what values of does its associated power series converge?
Interval and radius of convergence

Recall that some Taylor series had restrictions on the values of for which the series equaled the function (e.g. geometric series, , ). In other words, the series converges for some values of and diverges for other values of . , the goal is to find the values of for which the
In general, given a power series
series converges. The following theorem tells us that the set of such values is always an interval: Given
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there exists some
such that ; or .
the series converges absolutely if the series diverges if ; might converge or diverge when The interval of convergence is the interval
, possibly with the endpoints included (they need
to be individually checked in general). The radius of convergence is half the length of the interval of convergence.
The method for finding the interval of convergence is to use the ratio test to find the interval where the series converges absolutely and then check the endpoints of the interval using the various methods from the previous modules. Previously, when using the ratio test, one computed and then checked if , , or Now, the goal is to find the values of for which the series converges absolutely, i.e. for which . So is computed, in terms of , and is set to be less than 1. This gives an interval of values for which the series converges absolutely. Once this interval has been determined, the endpoints must be checked for convergence as well. .
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RADIUS OF CONVERGENCE
For a general power series in terms of the sequence ? Note that , what is the radius of convergence
And for absolute convergence
. So in terms of the
, we get absolute convergence when
or equivalently,
Thus, we have shown that the radius of convergence of the series is given by
EXAMPLE
Find the interval and radius of convergence for the power series
Answer
EXAMPLE
Find the interval of convergence for
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Answer
Shifted power series

Recall that the Taylor series for a function can be computed at a point the series took the form other than 0. In this case
Such a power series is said to be centered at , since the interval of convergence for the series will be centered at . To see why, carry out the calculation as above (replacing all the 's with 's) to find that the series converges absolutely when
So the radius of convergence is the same (it only depends on the sequence center of the interval that has changed. Thus, the interval of convergence is again one must individually check the endpoints.
), and it is only the , and
EXAMPLE
Answer
EXAMPLE
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Answer
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Taylor Series Redux

The last module took a sequence into a power series and turned it . This module to a sequence ? The answer is yes,
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turns this around and asks can we go from a function
and this is the familiar process of computing the Taylor series for the function. Recalling the Taylor series for :
we see that
is the sequence corresponding to
. We could also center the
Taylor series at a different point, and get a different sequence, but for now let's keep things centered at 0. Now that we have turned our function into its Taylor series, we come back to the questions deferred
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from earlier in the course: 1. For what values of does a function's Taylor series converge? 2. Does the Taylor series converge to the function? These questions are the topics of this module.
Taylor series convergence

We now have the tools to see when a power series converges, so the answer to the first question is that the series
converges absolutely for
, where
Within the interval of convergence, differentiation and integration of a power series are nice, in that they can be done term by term: 1.
2.
Why is this useful? Being able to differentiate and integrate term by term allows us to compute the Taylor series for various functions by differentiating or integrating the Taylor series for other functions.
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functions.
EXAMPLE
Compute the Taylor series for Answer by noting that .
EXAMPLE
Show that the power series for Answer can be written as
. Hint: try integrating both sides and see what familiar function you get.
Example
The Fresnel Integral is defined by
There is no elementary expression for this integral, but it can be expressed as a series by expanding the series for and then integrating term by term:
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Taylor series convergence to a function

Now, we consider the second question above: when a Taylor series converges, does it always converge to the function? Unfortunately, not always. Even with a smooth , and within the interval of convergence, it is possible that the Taylor series does not converge to . The following definition is used for functions whose Taylor series do converge to the functions themselves: Definition: Real-analytic function A function is real-analytic at if for sufficiently close to ,
That is, a function .
is real-analytic at
if the Taylor series for
converges to
near
Almost all the functions we have encountered in this course are real-analytic. However, there are examples of smooth functions which are not real-analytic, as the next example shows.
EXAMPLE
Consider the function
To show that this function is smooth, we must show that its derivative exists at (everywhere else it is a composition of nice functions, so we need not worry). We use the definition of the derivative:
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This can either be thought of as a , which gives the limit
case for l'Hospital's rule, or we can do a change of variables
since the exponential beats a polynomial asymptotically. So higher derivatives of have
. It turns out that all of the
at 0 are 0 as well. So if we tried to expand this as a Taylor series, we would
So the Taylor series for
converges to 0, despite the fact that
is non-zero for
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Approximation And Error

Given a series that is known to converge but for which an < Taylor ser ies r edux | Home Page | Calculus > exact answer is not known, how does one find a good approximation to the true value? One way to get an approximation is to add up some number of terms and then stop. But how many terms are enough? How close will the result be to the true answer? That is the motivation for this module.
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Error defined
Given a convergent series
Recall that the partial sum
is the sum of the terms up to and including
, i.e.,
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Then the error
is the difference between
and the true value , i.e.,
In other words, the error is the sum of all the terms from the infinite series which were not included in the partial sum.
Alternating series error bound

For a decreasing, alternating series, it is easy to get a bound on the error :
In other words, the error is bounded by the next term in the series.
NOTE
If the series is strictly decreasing (as is usually the case), then the above inequality is strict.
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To see why the alternating bound holds, note that each successive term in the series overshoots the true value of the series. In other words, if is the true value of the series,
The above figure shows that if one stops at than .
, then the error
must be less
EXAMPLE
What is the minimum number of terms of the series
one needs to be sure to be within The goal is to find value of is so that ? If
of the true sum? . Since , then , the question becomes for which , and so by the alternating series error
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bound,
. Thus 9 terms are required to be within
of the true value of the series.
Integral test for error bounds

Another useful method to estimate the error of approximating a series is a corollary of the integral test. Recall that if a series has terms which are positive and decreasing, then
But notice that the middle quantity is precisely
. So
This bound is nice because it gives an upper bound and a lower bound for the error.
EXAMPLE
How many terms of the series
must one add up so that the Integral bound guarantees the approximation is within answer? Answer
of the true
Taylor approximations
Recall that the Taylor series for a function about 0 is given by
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The Taylor polynomial of degree is the approximating polynomial which results from truncating the above infinite series after the degree term:
This is a good approximation for
when
is close to 0. How good an approximation is it? That is
the purpose of the last error estimate for this module. As in previous modules, let the function, i.e., be the error between the Taylor polynomial and the true value of
Notice that the error the error will be.
is a function of
. In general, the further away
is from , the bigger
A first, weak bound for the error is given by
for some constant
and
sufficiently close to 0. In other words,
is
. A stronger
bound is given in the next section.
TAYLOR REMAINDER THEOREM

The following gives the precise error from truncating a Taylor series:
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Taylor remainder theorem The error is given precisely by
for some then
between 0 and .
, inclusive. So if
, then
, and if
EXAMPLE
Consider the case when . The Taylor remainder theorem says that
for some
between 0 and
. Solving for
gives
for some if and if , which is precisely the statement of the M ean value theorem. Therefore, one can think of the Taylor remainder theorem as a generalization of the M ean value theorem.
TAYLOR ERROR BOUND

As it is stated above, the Taylor remainder theorem is not particularly useful for actually finding the error, because there is no way to actually find the for which the equation holds. There is a slightly different form which gives a bound on the error: Taylor error bound
where
over all
between 0 and
, inclusive.
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EXAMPLE
Estimate using
and bound the error. Answer

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Multi Variable
Calculus
In this course, we've learned skills in five key areas: Limits Differentiation Integration ODEs Series Some of the things we can do are pretty impressive. However, there are many simple-seeming questions in single-variable calculus that show us just how much we have left to learn.
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PROBLEM 1
Why is the standard Gaussian a probability density function? In other words, why is
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Why is it that with all our methods, we cannot evaluate this integral easily? Let's try...
MORAL
This integral is easy with a little bit of multivariable calculus.
PROBLEM 2
Recall that we began this class with the definition of the exponential function series for and , we invoked Euler's formula: and then, to obtain
Why is this true? We certainly could substitute in our favorite Taylor series and verify that it is true, but wouldn't it be better to have a principled reason for why this is so? Let's try... Let . Then by that very familiar differential equation. Now, name the real and imaginary parts of by and respectively. Then , and . On the other hand, multiplying by gives
Therefore,
becomes
, and so by equating the real and imaginary parts
in this equation we get the system
This is a system of differential equations which is easy to solve with some multivariable calculus, but for now we are stuck. We can observe that and provides a solution, but we cannot say it is the only solution without more tools.
MORAL
This system of ODEs is easy to solve with a little bit of multivariable calculus.
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PROBLEM 3
On several occasions, we have referenced the famous series
Why is this true? Could we use discrete calculus to derive it? I don't think so...but here is proof using Taylor series and integration. Let . Consider the integral
On the other hand, the integral in terms of
is
One can show that the Taylor series for
is given by
Plugging this in gives
One can find with careful integration by parts and induction that the inner integral evaluates to
Details
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Plugging this in cancels almost everything, leaving
This is the sum of the odd reciprocals squared. Giving names to these various sums:
Note that
has the odd terms, and
has the even terms). Further,
Substituting, we find that follows that , as desired.
, and so
. Since
as shown above, it
MORAL
This series is easy to evaluate with a little bit of multivariable calculus. Well, actually, no: it's not easy, but it is a bit simpler. In the end, some math problems are hard.
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Foreshadowing
In this module we give a hint at what is to come in multivariable calculus.
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Functions
As in single variable calculus, multivariable calculus is primarily a study of functions. But instead of functions with one input and one output, multivariable calculus looks at functions with multiple inputs and outputs. The notation for a function with real inputs and real outputs is
Matrices
When dealing with multiple inputs and multiple outputs, it becomes necessary to keep track of several pieces of information when dealing with, say, the derivative. The data structure which makes this
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possible is a matrix, which is an array of numbers arranged in rows and columns. For example, a matrix has 4 rows and 3 columns, and might look like
A square matrix has the same number of rows and columns. A particular square matrix with a special name is the identity matrix, which has 1's on the main diagonal and 0's everywhere else. For example, the identity matrix is given by
MATRIX ALGEBRA
One feature of matrices is that they can be multiplied, by a slightly unintuitive process. Consider the product of a matrix with a matrix:
To see where these numbers come from, arrange the matrices a little differently:
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To get an entry in the resulting matrix (bottom right), take the corresponding row from the matrix to the left and the corresponding column from the matrix above, multiply their corresponding entries together, and add. The above example shows the calculation for two entries in the result. Note that for this multiplication to be defined, the number of columns in the first matrix must match the number of rows in the second matrix (otherwise there would not be the correct number of entries to multiply together and add). There are some nice features of matrix multiplication, and some features which are a little bit different than regular multiplication: The identity matrix can be thought of as the matrix equivalent of 1, since multiplying by the identity (of the appropriate size) gives back the same matrix with which we began. M atrix multiplication is associative (i.e. for appropriately sized matrices ), but it is not commutative (i.e. and (again thinking of ) in general. Indeed, both are square matrices of the same size. as 1). Note that orders of multiplication is only defined if There is a matrix version of
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It is possible that the product of two non-zero matrices to give the zero matrix:
Vectors
Another data structure of importance is a vector, which can be thought of as a single row or single column matrix (depending on context). A useful way to visualize a vector is as a difference between two points, or an arrow from one point to another. So a vector can be thought of as a line segment with both a magnitude (the distance between the two points) and a direction (which way the arrow points). Vectors can be added by visualizing placing the tail of one vector at the head of the other. Vectors can also be multiplied by a matrix to give another vector (the multiplication is just matrix multiplication, again by thinking of the vector as a matrix with just a single column).
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Introduction What this wiki is

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. Give the domain and range for each of these.

. Give the domain and range for the exponential. Answer

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denotes the inverse, not the reciprocal.

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Notice that the graphs of

are always going to be symmetric about the line

Other powers besides those of positive integers are useful. Example:

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What is What is What is What is

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That explains the nature of the formula circle .

. It comes from the equation of the unit

Others trigonometric functions:

, the reciprocal of , the reciprocal of the

and has a restricted domain , but it takes values

function likewise has a restricted domain

Recall the graph of

, plotted here alongside its inverse,

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(as is true of the graphs of a function and

in the exponent is the imaginary number

. It has the properties

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Answer Example Find the domain of

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This module describes how to compute the coefficients

for a given function

The definition of a Taylor series at x=0

The definition of the Taylor series of Taylor series at

evaluated at 0. In other words, the

mentioned above is given by

using the above definition, and verify it

Why Taylor series matter

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Taylor series as polynomial approximants

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