Welcome to Calculus.

I'm Professor Ghrist.

We're about to begin Lecture 38 on the
Elements.
In the past several lessons, we've seen
examples of area elements, volume
elements, length elements, and more.
What other differential elements can we
integrate to solve problems?
In this lesson, we'll focus on several
examples that range from physics to
finance.
By now, I'm sure you've discerned our
procedure for computing the definite
integral.
First, determine the appropriate
differential element, dU.
And then, integrate to compute U.
And we've done this in several contexts,
area, volume, surface area, length, and
work.
The question remains, what else does this
method apply to?
There are many, many things.
In this lesson, we'll take a look at a
few.
Let's begin with mass and consider what
is the mass of a pen?
Well, a pen is composed of many parts.
We could compute the mass of each and add
them together.
Or, using calculus, we could set up a
coordinate x along the pen and consider
slicing it into thin pieces and compute
the mass of each.
This would give us what we might call the
linear density row of this object.
The linear density is the rate of change
of the mass as we change the coordinate.
Now, for an actual pen, this might be a
discontinuous function.
However, given, that linear density row
is a function of x, we could compute the
mass element dM as row of x, that linear
density, times dx, that length element.
And of course, the mass is the integral
of the mass element.
Let's consider a bigger problem.
What is the mass of the earth?
We're going to consider the density as a
function of the radial coordinate, r the
distance to the center of the Earth.
In this case, we know that the density
changes as you move from the inner core,
to the outer core to the mantle, then the
crust and then the atmosphere.
This however is not a linear density.
But a volumetric density, it would be
measured in say grams per cubic

centimeter or something of that form.

In this case, what is the mass element?
Well, if we choose a very small segment
of the radial coordinate that is dr.
Then we would have the volumetric density
at that r value, but it would not be
times dr.
Rather, it would be towards dV, the
volume element.
Since this is volumetric density and so
the question is, what is the volume
element?
Well that is the surface area of the
sphere of radius r, 4 pi r squared times
the infimitesimal thickness, dr.
This gives us the mass as the integral of
the mass element.
That is the integral 4pi r squared times
row of r dr.
This would be measured, of course, as r
goes from 0 to 6400 if we were doing this
in terms of kilometers.
Let's switch to a different topic, that
of torque, which you've certainly
experienced.
Even if you've never learned formally.
If you extend your arm and apply force or
a weight to it, you feel torque about
your shoulder.
The magnitude of that torque depends on
the magnitude of the force and the
distance from that force to your
shoulder.
The torque is equal to the force.
Really, that perpendicular force,
perpendicular to your arm.
That force times the distance between
where the force is applied and your
shoulder.
Now, that is true for a singular force, a
force applied at one point.
What happens if we have a weight?
That is variable, that is distributed
across your entire arm.
Maybe we would specify this by some
linear mass density function row like we
did in the case of the pen.
Then, let's compute the torque in terms
the torque element dT.
dT is going to be the distance x times
the force element, the f.
The amount of force applied at x.
What is that force element?
Well, force is mass times acceleration.
The acceleration is g, gravitation
constant.
The mass, however, is a mass element dM,
and dM is computed as we have done before
in the case of the pen as the linear
density rho of x times dx.

Putting all of these together, we can

obtain an integral for the torque as x
times g times rho of x dx integrated over
the arm.
sometimes, we'll collapse g and rho of x
together to give something called a
weight density.
Now, you don't have to memorize this
formula, but you have to know how to
reason in terms of elements.
In this manner, let's think a little bit
more about force and in particular, the
force of a fluid on a tank.
Now, if we're given a weight density for
that fluid let us call this rho as well.
Then, if we set up a coordinate system x,
that represents the depth from the top of
the fluid in the tank.
Then, capital P is going to represent the
pressure.
What do we mean by pressure?
Well, there's a little bit of physics
that goes on here.
For the moment, you should think that
pressure depends on the density of the
fluid and the depth.
Now, I can argue that, that pressure is
really the product of these two.
You can see that that's reasonable.
If you think about how much pressure is
at the bottom of the tank versus at the
top, you could see that by say poking
some holes in the side of a tank and
seeing what happens to the water that is
pushed out by the pressure.
All right, well, given that as a
backdrop, how can we compute the force
that that water or fluid exerts on the
side of the tank?
Well, that's going to depend on all these
terms.
Pressure can be thought of as force per
unit area, and that leads us to the
differential formulation that the force
element, dF, is P, the pressure, times
the area element dA on the side of the
tank.
We can expand that out further as row
times x times dA and this allows us to
integrate to obtain the force.
The force is the integral row times x
times dA.
Let's put this to use in an explicit
problem.
Compute the net force on an end cap.
The full radius cylindrical tank.
So consider a cylinder on it's side, fill
it with fluid what happens at the end?
Well, the pressure is increasing as you
go down, but the area element is changing

as well.
Let's take a look at the end of that
cylinder head on.
It's a radius r disc.
x is going to be our coordinates measured
from the top of the tap will be
integrating with respect to dx, obtaining
a horizontal strip as an area element.
It's going to be easier if we change
coordinates to U, where U is equal to x
minus r.
In this case, U is going to be centered.
The middle of the disc, but du will be
equal to dx.
In this case, the area element is given
by what?
Well, with a little bit of help from a
right triangle, we see that the area
element is twice square root of r squared
minus u squared, times the thickness, du.
The force element is the pressure times
the area element.
Recall, that pressure is rho, the weight
density times x, the distance from the
top.
Now, x being u plus R, and dA being twice
root r squared minus u squared du, gives
us our entire force element.
To obtain the force, we integrate the
force element.
As u goes from negative R to R, the
resulting integral allows us to pull out
the constant weight density, rho.
As we've seen in similar integrals in the
past, what is going to work best is to
split this up into two integrals,
distributing.
The multiplication over the addition, and
noticing that one of these integrals has
an odd integrand integrated from negative
R to R.
Therefore, one of these integrals goes
away and we're left with the second rho
times R times the integral from negative
R to R of 2 root R squared minus u
squared du.
That is in fact the area element for the
disc and so we obtain rho times R times
the area of pi R squared yielding a net
force of rho pi R cubed.
Let's turn to a financial example.
The concept of present value mainly.
How much is tomorrow's money worth today?
We can answer that if we reverse the
question.
Because if we assume a fixed interest
rate of r and continuously compound an
investment, then we know from our work on
simple differential equations that money
grows exponentially with an exponent

depending on R, the interest rate.

And so, if instead of considering how
money today grows, we take money in the
future and say, how much money would we
need today?
To invest to get that, then we can argue
that a certain amount of money at time t
is worth that amount times e to the
negative rt right now.
And that allows us to discuss the present
value of an income stream, I of t.
It depends on time given that rate of
income then what is the present value.
How much money would that be worth if you
had it all today?
Well, we can express this in terms of the
present value element, dPV.
This is going to be e to the negative rt
times I of t dt.
And so, integrating this and we get the
present value.
This is simply a small collection of the
many possible examples of computing
elements in order to integrate and solve
problems.
We've gone through quite a number of
different examples of applications, but
we've not covered everything.
There's no need to learn every possible
application that's out there.
What one really needs to know is the
procedure by which we solve these
problems using integrals.
In our next lesson, we're going to turn
to a different class of problems that can
be solved through integrals.
That of computing averages.
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