# Easy trig integral =/

• February 5th 2011, 01:44 PM
Kuma
Easy trig integral =/
I haven't done any sort of trig integrals in the past and i have pretty much forgotten all my identities since i haven't looked at them for over 3 years so please bear with me.

The question is:

upper limit = 1, lower limit = 0.
Integrate cos (x^2) with those bounds.

First off I had to approximate the integral using the midpoint/trapezoidal rules. Those were fairly straightforward. Now i want to check my answer but I'm kinda lost.

If i took the integral of cos (x^2), i would get sin(x^2) no?
Subbing in the limits of integration i would get sin(1) - sin(0) = sin (1)
but using the approximation rules above I got the integral as being approximately equal to one, which does not equal to sin (1).

Help?
• February 5th 2011, 01:56 PM
mr fantastic
Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuma
I haven't done any sort of trig integrals in the past and i have pretty much forgotten all my identities since i haven't looked at them for over 3 years so please bear with me.

The question is:

upper limit = 1, lower limit = 0.
Integrate cos (x^2) with those bounds.

First off I had to approximate the integral using the midpoint/trapezoidal rules. Those were fairly straightforward. Now i want to check my answer but I'm kinda lost.

If i took the integral of cos (x^2), i would get sin(x^2) no? Mr F says: No. Differentiate it and you will see why.
Subbing in the limits of integration i would get sin(1) - sin(0) = sin (1)
but using the approximation rules above I got the integral as being approximately equal to one, which does not equal to sin (1).

Help?

The integral of cos(x^2) cannot be found in closed form using elementary functions.
• February 5th 2011, 02:05 PM
Kuma
Thanks. But how would i differentiate that then? Does chain rule apply or something. I've never worked with trig functions before so. I do know that d/dx cos x = sin x, how would that apply to cos x^2?
• February 5th 2011, 02:09 PM
FullBox
Yeah, you use the chain rule. First, find the derivative of sin, then find the derivative of the value within sin.

http://www.mathhelpforum.com/math-he...l-capture4.jpg

Attachment 20687
• February 5th 2011, 02:20 PM
Kuma
Ah i see. So you can differentiate cos x^2 to get 2x sin x^2, but the integral of that would pretty much be impossible to find. Makes sense.
• February 5th 2011, 02:30 PM
TheCoffeeMachine
I find that $\int_{0}^{1}\cos{x^2}\;{dx} = \sum\limits_{k=0}^{\infty}\frac{(-1)^k}{(2k)!(4k+1)}$.
(Not that it's significant or matters, anyway).