Volume created by the revolution of a polar function around the initial line

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The discussion focuses on deriving the volume generated by rotating a polar function around the initial line. The user proposes using the surface area of cones, multiplied by dθ, to calculate the volume, likening it to the method of cylindrical shells. They express concern that their integral formulation does not yield the correct volume for a circle with radius 1, resulting in 2π instead of the expected 4/3π. The user seeks assistance in correcting their derivation and understanding the appropriate method for calculating the volume. Clarification on the correct approach to integrating polar functions for volume calculations is requested.
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Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could help me with deriving the volume created by the rotation of a polar equation around the initial line.

So, I thought about adding the surface area of cones (multiplied by d\theta) if each cone the triangle created with s-length of f(\theta) and r-length of f(\theta)sin(\theta).

Basically, this was entirely premised that cone shells could work exactly like cylindrical shells when trying to find volume - but I don't think it works.

The formula for the surface area of a cone (not including the circle at the bottom) is \pi*r*s.

http://math.about.com/od/formulas/ss/surfaceareavol_2.htm" is a site that has info on r and s.

So if I wanted to rotate the circle r=1 around the initial line but only from 0<\theta<{\pi}, then the integral summing the cone surface areas could be expressed by:

<br /> \int_0^\pi \pi*r*s*d\theta =<br /> \int_0^\pi \pi f(\theta)*f(\theta)*sin(\theta) d\theta =<br /> \int_0^\pi \pi f(\theta)^2 sin (\theta) d\theta<br />

I spent a lot of time on this problem, including looking at spherical sectors - circular sectors are needed to calculate the *area* of a polar graph.If anyone could help me with this derivation, it would help me significantly. Thanks so much for your help and time!
 
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Hello again,

I forget to say that the integral I mention above does not calculate the correct volume e.g. for a circle r=1. It gives a volume of 2pi, when it should be 4/3 pi.



Thanks again for any help you can offer!
 

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