Ask Uncle Colin: A trigonometric integral
Dear Uncle Colin,
I’m trying to find a definite integral:
, where and are positive integers and the answer needs to be simplified as far as possible. I’ve wound up with , but it’s been marked wrong. -- Flat Out Unhappy: Routine Integration Evidently Right
Hello, FOURIER – and thanks for your question!
You’re almost, but not quite right – and you’ve got a lot further than an awful lot of people would have done. You have, however, missed two slightly subtle wrinkles.
For the benefit of everyone else at the back of the class, here’s how I’d tackle the problem:
First, use the formulas-you-never-use, which include
If you work it through (ignoring the factor of -2 for the moment),
The first wrinkle is: you can only integrate this as it stands as long as
Integrating gives
Here’s the second wrinkle:
If they’re the same, the thing we’re integrating is
This integrates to
Your final answer should have been
Hope that makes sense!
-- Uncle Colin