Surface area of revolution for an ellipse

erjkism
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Homework Statement



Find the surface area obtained when the upper half of the ellipse: \frac{x^{2}}{4}+ y^{2}=1 is rotated about the x-axis

Homework Equations


\int2piyds


The Attempt at a Solution

 
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Please continue. ds=sqrt(1+(dy/dx)^2)*dy, correct?
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
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