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What you actually have to know about integrals (2013)

Page history last edited by Joe Redish 6 years, 9 months ago

Class Content I >Modeling with mathematics > Math recap > Values, change, and rates of change > Integrals

2.2.5.2.1

 

Prerequisites

 

The lead-in article to this, Integrals, was pretty long, tedious, and mathematical. Clearly, in this class, we are not going to ask you to make mathematical derivations like that.  So what is it we want you to know?

 

The basics

Here are a few of the main points you need to understand about an integral.

  1. An integral is a summing up of products of a function (g) times a change (dx).
  2. By summing up the products of g times dx we are creating the function (call it f) whose derivative is g.
  3. Since the integral is a sum of products, the dimensionality of the integral will be a product of the dimensionality of g times the dimensionality of dx.
  4. Typically, the integral only gives you the shape of the function whose derivative is g.  Since you can add a constant to f and the new function will have the same derivative (since the derivative of a constant is 0), to get the function that is represented by an integral, you have to know the value of the function you are creating at one point (f(x0)). 
  5. You need to know a few "anti-derivatives" -- that is, what function do you get if you integrate a few simple functions.  At most you will need to know these:
    • The integral of xn is xn+1/(n+1)
    • The integral of ex is ex.
    • The integral of cos(x) is sin(x) and the integral of sin(x) is -cos(x).

 

We can look at integrals in a variety of ways.

  • Integral as a product
  • Integral as a stepping rule
  • Integral on a graph 

 

Integral as a product

The key equations for understanding the integral are multiplying up from the definition of the derivative (remember, g = df/dx) and then opening up the change in f and solving for the final value. These are written as three equations that follow easily one from the next.

 

where we are using a subscript "i" to indicate "initial value" and "f" to mean "final value". This isn't too bad.  It's really just algebra (with lots of symbols, as is usual in science!).

 

The "integral" is just the product, g Δx. It's clearly a product of a function times a small change.

 

The integral as a stepping rule

After we had the product, in the above equations we just opened Δf up to show it as an explicit change.  We then moved the initial value to the right so the right side only depends on the starting place and gives us the final value.  If, for example, our "g" stands for an acceleration, since the acceleration is the derivative of the velocity, then the velocity should be the integral of the acceleration.  So if we know the acceleration as a function of time (for any time), and we know a starting value of the velocity, we can generate velocities at later times.  The triplet of equations above would now look like this:

 

 

We can get a velocity at a later time from the velocity and acceleration at an earlier time -- thereby predicting the future by integrating.

 

The integral as a graph and the relation to the derivative

We can also look at the integral as something on a graph, just as we could a derivative. For example, the velocity (v) is the derivative of the position (x) with respect to time, v = dx/dt.  This means that the position is the integral of the velocity with respect to time, dx = v dt.  Note that the integral only gives us the change in the function it creates.  To get the whole thing, you have to know a starting value.

 

These ideas are represented in the following graphs with their associated equations.

 

The first set represents how to get the graph of the derivative (v) from the graph of the function (x).

The equations that show what is going on are these:

 

 

We start with the x graph.  At each time on the x graph (5 are shown by dotted lines) we make small triangles showing what the change is in x during a small time interval around each selected instant. The ratio of those two changes is the velocity at that instant.

 

To go backwards -- from velocity to position -- we have to integrate. That process is represented by these graphs.

The equations that show what is going on are these:

We start on the v graph at a particular time and choose a small time interval, dt. The product of the average velocity in that interval times dt is the area of the little rectangle shown. That area has dimensions [v dt] = (L/T) (T) = L so it's the change in the position.  If we have a starting value of x at the initial time, we can use the area on the v-t graph to figure out the change in x and therefore what the new value of x will be at the end of the time interval.

 

Joe Redish 9/4/11

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