INTEGRATION BY U-SUBSTITUTION

Background | Recall from that the derivative of a function in the form

using the chain rule. That is, in general: can be found

For instance, if

) ( )

Because it can be put into the form , where , and ( ). Consequently, from the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, it follows that the integral of df/dx should give us , plus an arbitrary constant of integration. Hence: ( ) ( )

The method of u-substitution allows us to apply the principle in reverse, and thus find the antiderivative of certain functions.

Definition | As alluded to above, u-substitution is the inverse of the chain rule of

differentiation, and used as a method to find anti-derivatives and integrals. Let I be an interval and g(x) : [a,b] I be a function which is continuously differentiable. Also let f(x): I be a continuous function. Then, for any such function, Where F is the anti-derivative of f.

Example 1 | Evaluate the integral:

Here we can clearly see that the derivative of is . Therefore, write:

This means that du = (4x 1) dx.

From here, we can substitute into the original equation. In particular we will replace with u and (4x 1) dx with du. This yields a much simpler equation to solve: The last step of course, is to replace u with the original g(x):

Example 2 | Evaluate the integral

While it may not be obvious at first glance, this is also a problem where u-substitution can be used. First, we will use our knowledge of trigonometric identities and re-write the integrand as:

So the integral is: Now we can see that the cos(x) is clearly the derivative of sin(x), so we write:

Replacing these into the original equation, and then put g(x): Now evaluate the integral. [ ( )] [ ( )]

Note that you must wait until you have replaced u with g(x) to evaluate the integral, as the limits are given in terms of x.

Example 3 | Given that a and b are real numbers, and that n is an integer, evaluate the integral
This is a more abstract example. If we knew n, and n is relatively small, and a and b are rational numbers, it might be relatively easy to evaluate by expanding the polynomial. However, if n is large, and a and b are irrational, it becomes quite difficult. Here, using u-substitution proves a convenient method. We can see that the derivative of coefficient shortly. We write: is 3at2. We will show how to deal with this extra

As usual, we will now replace the original equation with u and du. However, in order to get t2, we must divide du by 3a. This is possible, only because a is a constant.

EXERCISES
Integrate each of the following: 1. 6. 2. 7. 3.

The following require may u-substitution to be done twice.

Hint: tan(x) = sin(x)/cos(x)

8.

4.

9. 5.