Visualizing solids of revolution

Which is the biggest shape?

Edmund has been a huge fan of the reality game show Endurance since it debuted when he was in
elementary school, and now he’s finally been picked for the cast. The beginning of the season always
involves contests for food, and this one is no different. Edmund has been presented with a giant tub of
peanut butter which is on a slowly revolving turntable and a spreader in the shape of a right triangle with
legs of 3” and 5” with which to carve out a hunk of it to eat (and possibly to share with his teammates).
The tub is a cylinder with depth 6” and diameter 12”.

Edmund will be allowed to dig the spreader

into the tub for just the time it takes to make
one revolution, and he isn’t allowed to move
it, just stick it in and hold it there while the
peanut butter is pushed out. He has to decide
what strategy will get him the most food. He
can decide which way to orient the spreader
and where to insert it. As a good calculus
student, he’s going to do this mathematically.
He’s narrowed down his choices to the four
shown here. In each case, the axis of
revolution is the altitude of the cylinder at the
center of the base.

1. Based on the diagrams provided, do you think that it will make any difference where he digs in? If
not, why not? If so, which one do you think will give the most volume? (Do not yet do any actual
computation or any three-dimensional sketches of your own.)

2. Next, use Winplot to generate three-dimensional models to compare visually. We’ll let the axis of
revolution be the y-axis, and the functions revolved are listed below for each diagram.
3
A: y = x − 3 and y = 0, from x= 0 to x= 5
5
5
B: y = x − 5 and y = 0, from x= 0 to x= 3
3
5
C: y = − ( x − 3) and y = 0, from x= 3 to x = 6
3
3
D: y = − ( x − 1) and y = 0, from x = 1 to x= 6
5
These instructions will generate the solid for A; you can adapt them to get the other three yourself.
Open WinPlot and choose 2-dim from the Window menu. Use the View dialog to set up a window
that is [-8, 8] on the x-axis and [–8, 2] on the y-axis. You may want to zoom square, too.

In the Equa menu, choose Explicit, enter 3/5x – 3 for the function, lock the interval, and set the
bounds from 0 to 5. You should get a diagonal segment below the x–axis to represent the edge of
the spreader. To revolve it, choose Revolve Surface from the One menu. Click on the y-axis
button, and enter 0 and 5 for arc start and arc stop. Then choose see surface. Next, put a “lid” on
 it, by revolving the function y = 0 using the same limits. The picture you get may be upside down
or turned some weird direction. Use the arrow keys to rotate it until you like what you see. Copy
the picture and paste it into a word-processing document.

Repeat the process for diagrams B, C, and D. Close the solid window, hide the first equation, and
put the next one in the same file. It will be helpful to make each equation a different color. Note
that the ones not centered at the origin will not have the vertical side to show the outer edge of the
solid. At the end of the assignment are instructions that provide a workaround for this, but it is not
necessary for you to do that in order to compare the volumes.

3. Based on the 3D diagrams you now have, which of Edmund’s strategies seems the best? Why?

4. It can be hard to compare the diagrams you made because there’s no scale. You can revolve all of
the solids in the same diagram to make them easier to compare, by just not closing the 3D window
and adding the solids as before. Do this, and once more copy the picture you get into your word
processing file. Which of the solids has the greatest volume? Are you sure?

5. In class, we will compute the volumes using calculus, but you can get values for the volumes in
Winplot, too. From the Two menu, choose Volume of revolution… and select y = 0 and the
appropriate line as the upper and lower bounds of the solid. For Axis, you want 0 = x (click the
radio button on the right of the number to get “= x”). Set the left and right bounds appropriately,
and then click the Volume button to see the volume of the solid. Now, for sure, which strategy
harvests the most peanut butter?

6. Do you think there’s a strategy that will beat any of Edmund’s four original options? If so, what is
it? If not, why not?

How to get the outer edge for C and D:

In each case, you need a vertical line at x = 6. While Winplot can graph a vertical line using the
Line command, it will only revolve graphs that are entered as Explicit functions, and those aren’t
vertical lines. The technique involved is a trick; you graph a line with a really steep slope which is
only almost vertical instead. A slope of 100 works well; less steep and it looks less vertical, but
steeper sometimes disappears from the graph. The line is found in point-slope form, and in each
case, your point is (6, 0), so that the line is y = 100(x – 6). The part that takes extra care is the
lower and upper bounds. For C, we want the segment to appear to go from (6, –5) to (6, 0). It will
already intersect (6, 0). To get the left bound, solve the linear equation to find x when y = –5. In
5
this case, it’s x = − + 6 = 5.95 . Therefore you graph the line y = 100(x – 6) from x = 5.95 to
100
x = 6. That will give you an approximately vertical segment, and you revolve it like all of the other
functions to get the outer boundary for C. The difference in D is that you want it through (6, –3)
instead of (6, –5).

NOTES ABOUT THE ASSIGNMENT:

The Physical application is, I think, obvious. The Verbal is in the repeated occasions (1, 3, 4, 6) in
which students have to say which volume they think is most at each stage, and why. The Analytic
will come in class after this task is done, when students learn how to compute the volumes with
integrals. This is hinted at in step 5. The Numerical is in the use of Winplot to compute
approximate volumes in step 5. The Graphical is steps 1, 2, and 4.