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area. If half the mass is lost in 100 days, how long will it be before the radius has
decreased to one-half its initial value? How long before the mothball disappears
completely?
Solution
Solution.
Since the surface area of a sphere of radius r is 4 r 2 , the first sentence says that
dV 4 dV
k 4 r 2 . Since the volume of a sphere is r 3 , I can compute by
dt 3 dr
dV dV dV dr dr
differentiation: 4 r 2 . The chain rule says that 4 r 2 , so I have
dr dt dr dt dt
dV dV dV dr dr
k 4 r 2 and 4 r 2 .
dt dt dr dt dt
Therefore
dr dr
k 4 r 2 4 r 2 so k .
dt dt
This is an easy equation to solve: r kt c .
R
Thus the radius will be decreased to be when
2
cr 100
t ( R ( R / 2)) 242.37 243 days
k ( R ( R / 3 2 ))