Complicated Definite Double Integral

Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
2 replies · 2K views
dBrandon/dC
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
I've been working on a problem involving a large meteoroid passing over the Earth and what its gravitational effects would be on the Earth's mantle. I developed an equation for this, and I've worked it down to a certain point, but unfortunately, I'm not sure how to finally solve it. By the way, I downloaded a free trial version of Mathematica, but it doesn't seem to be able to solve the problem, either.

The equation is as follows:

Math Eq.jpg


(I'm new here, so I didn't know the best way to input an equation.)
Any help that could be provided would be very much appreciated.

- Brandon
 
Physics news on Phys.org
The "r" part of the integral is doable. I get
[tex]P=\int_{0}^{\pi}2\rho Gmdr^{2}a\sin{a}\dot ( \ln{\sqrt{r^{2}+d^{2}-\cos{a}} +r} -\frac{r}{\sqrt{r^{2}+d^{2}-\cos{a}}})da\left|^{r=6.275*10^6}_{r=6.175*10^6}[/tex]

Integrating the "a" part seems like it should be a nightmare, though. You could do a substitution u=-cos(a) if it wasn't for that a sitting outside. It's probably not expressible in elementary functions. Could you just evaluate it numerically?