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MIT18 01SCF10 Ses76d

The document discusses reduction formulas for integration. It explains that a reduction formula rewrites an integral in terms of a simpler integral by applying an integration rule repeatedly until reaching the answer. As an example, it shows using integration by parts n-1 times to rewrite the integral of (ln x)n dx in terms of (ln x) dx. This results in a reduction formula of Fn(x) = x(ln x)n - nFn-1(x). The formula is then applied twice to compute F0(x) and F1(x), and F2(x), illustrating how reduction formulas allow writing integrals in terms of simpler ones.

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53 views2 pages

MIT18 01SCF10 Ses76d

The document discusses reduction formulas for integration. It explains that a reduction formula rewrites an integral in terms of a simpler integral by applying an integration rule repeatedly until reaching the answer. As an example, it shows using integration by parts n-1 times to rewrite the integral of (ln x)n dx in terms of (ln x) dx. This results in a reduction formula of Fn(x) = x(ln x)n - nFn-1(x). The formula is then applied twice to compute F0(x) and F1(x), and F2(x), illustrating how reduction formulas allow writing integrals in terms of simpler ones.

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A Reduction Formula

When using a reduction formula to solve an integration problem, we apply some


rule to rewrite the integral in terms of another integral which is a little bit
simpler. We may have to rewrite that integral in terms of another integral, and
so on for n steps, but we eventually reach an answer.
For example, to compute:
�
(ln x)n dx

� by parts from the previous example n − 1 times, until


we repeat the integration
we’re just calculating (ln x) dx.
For our first step we use:
1
u = (ln x)n u� = n(ln x)n−1
x
v=x v � = 1.

Then:
� �
n n 1
(ln x) dx = x(ln x) − n (ln x)n−1 x dx
x
�
= x(ln x)n − n (ln x)n−1 dx

So, if: �

Fn (x) = (ln x)n dx

then we’ve just shown that:

Fn (x) = x(ln x)n − nFn−1 (x).

This is an example of a reduction formula; by applying


� the formula repeatedly
�
we can write down what Fn (x) is in terms of F1 (x) = ln xdx or F0 (x) = 1 dx.
We illustrate the use of a reduction formula by applying this one to the
preceding two examples. We start by computing F0 (x) and F1 (x):
�
F0 (x) = (ln x)0 dx = x + c

F1 (x) = x(ln x)1 − 1F0 (x) (use reduction formula)


= x ln x − x + c (Example 1)
F2 (x) = x(ln x)2 − 2F1 (x) (use reduction formula)
= x(ln x)2 − 2(x ln x − x) + c
= x(ln x)2 − 2x ln x + 2x + c (Example 2.)

This is how reduction formulas work in general.

1
MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu

18.01SC Single Variable Calculus��


Fall 2010 ��

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