How do you find the length of the polar curv r=cos^3(theta/3)?

Logan Glover

Logan Glover

Answered question

2023-03-02

How to find the length of the polar curve r = cos 3 ( θ 3 ) ?

Answer & Explanation

Hunter Hendricks

Hunter Hendricks

Beginner2023-03-03Added 6 answers

We using the chain rule.
By Chain Rule,
d r d θ = 3 cos 2 ( θ 3 ) [ - sin ( θ 3 ) ] 1 3
by cleaning up a bit,
= - cos 2 ( θ 3 ) sin ( θ 3 )
Note that θ goes from 0 to 3 π to complete the loop once.
Let us now calculate the curve's length L.
L = 0 3 π r 2 + ( d r d θ ) 2 d θ
= 0 3 π cos 6 ( θ 3 ) + cos 4 ( θ 3 ) sin 2 ( θ 3 ) d θ
by pulling cos 2 ( θ 3 ) out of the square-root,
= 0 3 π cos 2 ( θ 3 ) cos 2 ( θ 3 ) + sin 2 ( θ 3 ) d θ
by cos 2 θ = 1 2 ( 1 + cos 2 θ ) and cos 2 θ + sin 2 θ = 1 ,
= 1 2 0 3 π [ 1 + cos ( 2 θ 3 ) ] d θ
= 1 2 [ θ + 3 2 sin ( 2 θ 3 ) ] 0 3 π
= 1 2 [ 3 π + 0 - ( 0 + 0 ) ] = 3 π 2

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