How Does Hartle Derive the Equation from Arc Length to a Trigonometric Integral?

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I have no idea how eq 20.10b to eq 20.10c.

Hartle goes from the equation for the arc length to \sqrt{\frac{R^2}{R^2-x^2}}
 

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compute dy/dx and plug into 2.10.b. It leads directly to 2.10c. I certainly couldn't see it by eye - but it is a pretty small calculation.
 
Last edited:
PAllen said:
compute dy/dx and plug into 2.10.b. It leads directly to 2.10. I certainly couldn't see it by eye - but it is a pretty small calculation.

Sorry, I'm not able to read between the line here. What do you mean by compute dy/dx? Compute dy/dx of what?
 
Nano-Passion said:
Sorry, I'm not able to read between the line here. What do you mean by compute dy/dx? Compute dy/dx of what?

You have x^2+y^2=R^2. Solve for y and take dy/dx. Plug this into where dy/dx is in 2.10.b. You can then simplify to 2.10.c.
 
d(x2 + y2) = 2xdx + 2ydy = dR2 = 0

dy/dx = -x/y
 
PAllen said:
You have x^2+y^2=R^2. Solve for y and take dy/dx. Plug this into where dy/dx is in 2.10.b. You can then simplify to 2.10.c.

Oh, alright thanks. ^.^
 
One more question, do you know how he got -1, 1 as the limits of integration? It looks as if he pulled that number randomly.
 
Nano-Passion said:
One more question, do you know how he got -1, 1 as the limits of integration? It looks as if he pulled that number randomly.

A change of integration variable was made such that the new integration variable is dimensionless, i.e., \xi = x/R.
 
George Jones said:
A change of integration variable was made such that the new integration variable is dimensionless, i.e., \xi = x/R.

Okay, I also don't know how that integral will give you Pi. Something is missing in my knowledge-base.
 
  • #10
Nano-Passion said:
Okay, I also don't know how that integral will give you Pi. Something is missing in my knowledge-base.

That integral should be covered in any first course in calculus; or looked up in even the smallest table of integrals; or recognize that it is the circumference of a unit semi-circle. If you're reading this book, you should have calculus book, and can review integration of trigonometric forms.
 
  • #11
PAllen said:
That integral should be covered in any first course in calculus; or looked up in even the smallest table of integrals; or recognize that it is the circumference of a unit semi-circle. If you're reading this book, you should have calculus book, and can review integration of trigonometric forms.

Thank you, I should have realized that. What I also should have done is just evaluated the integral to see that it equals pi.

I suppose I should jump back to classical mechanics, I need to test out of classical mechanics I anyways. I'll come back to this book later.
 
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