Volume of rotation


By Nicholas Lawton (P860) on Thursday, April 8, 1999 - 02:37 pm :

In a diagram, the shaded region R, is bounded by the curve with equatiion y = e2x , the line x=1/2 & the co-ordinate axes. The region R is rotated through 360 degrees about the x axis. find in terms of e & pi the volume of the solid generated.

[Here's a picture. - The Editor]

Diagram


By Richard Samworth (Rjs57) on Saturday, April 10, 1999 - 01:40 pm :
Dear Nicholas,

What you need to do here is to slice your shape into discs with lots of planes perpendicular to the x-axis, so that each disc has width δx. The volume of a disc with left-hand end-point x, and right-hand end-point x+δx is approximately (δx)π e4x , since the volume of a cylinder is π r2 h.

Now, in order to calculate the total volume, we need to add up the volumes of these discs; we turn this finite sum into an integral by letting δx tend to zero. If this doesn't make much sense, think of approximating the area under a curve by rectangles of width δx and letting δx tend to zero: we end up with an integral.

Thus the total volume is
0 1/2 π e4x dx

which I will leave you to calculate.

Hope this helps.

Richard