How Do I Tackle Basic Integration in Economics After a Long Break?

[vaxop]

I have no idea what this means...
Im taking a economics class and its been 4 years since I did any calculus work, and I am completely in awe at what I am looking at here

What do the symbols mean? How do you go from step 1 to step 2 to step 3?

This is one tiny tiny bit of my course but I've been spending hours on it.. any help would be greatly appreciated :)
:tongue:

 

[t!m]

Well, how much do you understand? Do you know elementary integrals, and are you familiar with the exponential and logarithmic functions?

 

[vaxop]

i can guess my way through basic elementary integrals

 

[vaxop]

what does "dx" mean?

 

[nate808]

the change in x

 

[Rach3]

the change in x

More usefully, look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_integral

 

[vaxop]

thanks all its making a lot more sense
after you have integrated an integral, what do you do with it to 'solve' it using the upper and lower limits?
for example, in the example the answer is e^ln(1+t) from 0 to n..
how can i solve this now?

 

[dav2008]

See: Fundamental theorem of calculus (Scroll down to Formal Statements)

Basically you evaluate your answer at n and from that subtract the answer evaluated at 0 if your limits happen to be 0 and n.

 

[t!m]

Also, do you see any way to simplify e^ln(1+t)? Hint: they're inverse functions.