Where Can I Find More Challenging Integrals for My Competition?

  • Context: Calculus 
  • Thread starter Thread starter Mondayman
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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around finding more challenging integrals for a school competition. Participants share resources, suggestions, and personal experiences related to integrals that go beyond standard calculus textbooks.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses a desire for harder integrals beyond those found in standard textbooks like Briggs and Stewart.
  • Another suggests checking the Challenge thread in the General Math forum for integral questions.
  • A participant mentions Schaum's Outlines and a Handbook of Math Formulas as resources containing challenging integrals, noting that they often require substitutions to solve.
  • There is a recommendation for the YouTube channel BlackPenRedPen, which features unusual integrals and their solutions.
  • One participant appreciates the idea of using a handbook to find integrals to work out, indicating it has been helpful.
  • Another participant suggests collecting various methods used to solve difficult integrals, mentioning parametric differentiation as a useful technique.
  • The Feynman method is brought up as a potential technique for solving integrals, with references to sources where it can be learned.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the usefulness of various resources for finding challenging integrals, but there is no consensus on a single best approach or method for solving them.

Contextual Notes

Some suggestions depend on the availability of specific resources, and there may be limitations in the methods discussed, as not all participants have the same background or familiarity with the techniques mentioned.

Who May Find This Useful

Students and enthusiasts looking for challenging integral problems, educators seeking resources for teaching advanced calculus, and individuals preparing for math competitions.

Mondayman
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Hi folks,

I love doing integrals, and I think I'm going to start a competition at my school. The integrals in the standard calculus textbooks I have access to, Briggs, Stewart, etc., are pretty elementary. I am looking for some harder integrals. I have the books Irresistible Integrals and Inside Interesting Integrals already, and I've found some good ones browsing through this forum and online. I was thinking maybe older textbooks would a good place to look. I was wondering if anyone has worked through any that they found hard, or if anyone knows where I can find some harder integrals?
 
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You could look into our Challenge thread (filter "Challenge" in the General Math forum). There are quite a few integral questions.
 
There’s a Schaums Outlines with many worked and not worked examples for Calculus that you could use. They also have a Handbook Of Math Formulas with many challenging but no method on how to solve them. People look up the integral they have and do the substitutions to get the answer.

There’s a YouTube channel called BlackPenRedPen that shows an integral and then solves it. They are usually somewhat unusual integrals too.
 
fresh_42 said:
You could look into our Challenge thread (filter "Challenge" in the General Math forum). There are quite a few integral questions.

Thank you, there are some pretty hard ones on here.

jedishrfu said:
There’s a Schaums Outlines with many worked and not worked examples for Calculus that you could use. They also have a Handbook Of Math Formulas with many challenging but no method on how to solve them. People look up the integral they have and do the substitutions to get the answer.

There’s a YouTube channel called BlackPenRedPen that shows an integral and then solves it. They are usually somewhat unusual integrals too.

I never thought to pull them out of a handbook and work it out, that's a fantastic idea.

ibkev said:

I have this book already, its what got me interested in solving tricky integrals.

I appreciate the replies, its been helpful.
 
Also you should collect together the various recipes people have used to solve more intractable ones.

there's a youtuber blackpenredpen who solves many kinds of integrals using a variety of tricks.

Parametric differentiation was one such trick that I never learned and was amazed that you could even do it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parametric_derivative
 
Last edited:
The Feynman method?
 
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