Paul's Online Notes
Paul's Online Notes
Home / Calculus II / Integration Techniques / Integrals Involving Roots
Show Mobile Notice Show All Notes Hide All Notes
Mobile Notice
You appear to be on a device with a "narrow" screen width (i.e. you are probably on a mobile phone). Due to the nature of the mathematics on this site it is best viewed in landscape mode. If your device is not in landscape mode many of the equations will run off the side of your device (you should be able to scroll/swipe to see them) and some of the menu items will be cut off due to the narrow screen width.

Section 7.5 : Integrals Involving Roots

2. Evaluate the integral \( \displaystyle \int{{\frac{1}{{w + 2\sqrt {1 - w} + 2}}\,dw}}\).

Show All Steps Hide All Steps

Start Solution

The substitution we’ll use here is,

\[u = \sqrt {1 - w} \] Show Step 2

Now we need to get set up for the substitution. In other words, we need so solve for \(w\) and get \(dw\).

\[w = 1 - {u^2}\hspace{0.5in} \Rightarrow \hspace{0.5in}dw = - 2u\,du\] Show Step 3

Doing the substitution gives,

\[\int{{\frac{1}{{w + 2\sqrt {1 - w} + 2}}\,dw}} = \int{{\frac{1}{{1 - {u^2} + 2u + 2}}\,\left( { - 2u} \right)du}} = \int{{\frac{{2u}}{{{u^2} - 2u - 3}}\,du}}\] Show Step 4

This integral requires partial fractions to evaluate. Let’s start with the form of the partial fraction decomposition.

\[\frac{{2u}}{{\left( {u + 1} \right)\left( {u - 3} \right)}} = \frac{A}{{u + 1}} + \frac{B}{{u - 3}}\]

Setting the coefficients equal gives,

\[2u = A\left( {u - 3} \right) + B\left( {u + 1} \right)\]

Using the “trick” to get the coefficients gives,

\[\begin{align*}{u = 3:} & \hspace{0.25in} & 6 = & \, 4B\\{u = - 1:} & \hspace{0.25in} & - 2 = & - 4A\end{align*}\hspace{0.25in} \Rightarrow \hspace{0.25in}\begin{aligned} & {A = \frac{1}{2}}\\ & {B = \frac{3}{2}}\end{aligned}\]

The integral is then,

\[\int{{\frac{{2u}}{{\left( {u + 1} \right)\left( {u - 3} \right)}}\,du}} = \int{{\frac{{\frac{1}{2}}}{{u + 1}} + \frac{{\frac{3}{2}}}{{u - 3}}\,du}} = \frac{1}{2}\ln \left| {u + 1} \right| + \frac{3}{2}\ln \left| {u - 3} \right| + c\] Show Step 5

The last step is to now do all the back substitutions to get the final answer.

\[\int{{\frac{1}{{w + 2\sqrt {1 - w} + 2}}\,dw}} = \require{bbox} \bbox[2pt,border:1px solid black]{{\frac{1}{2}\ln \left| {\sqrt {1 - w} + 1} \right| + \frac{3}{2}\ln \left| {\sqrt {1 - w} - 3} \right| + c}}\]