Thomas' Calculus

Tenth Edition

Section 4.3- Estimating with Finite Sums

5. You and a companion are about to drive a twisty road in a car whose
speedometer works but whose odometer (mileage counter) is broken.
To find out how long this stretch of road is, you record the car's
velocity at 10 sec intervals, with the results shown in the table below.

Time (sec) Velocity (ft/sec) Time (sec) Velocity (ft/sec)

0 0 70 15
10 44 80 22
20 15 90 35
30 35 100 44
40 30 110 30
50 44 120 35
60 35

Estimate the length of the road using

a) left-end point values

We use the formula    

Using left-end point values means we assume the car has
velocity 0 from 0 to 10 sec, and velocity 44 from 10 to 20 sec,
and so forth.

The length                   

               ft.

b) right-end point values

If we use right-end point values, we assume the car has velocity

44 from 0 to 10 sec, and velocity 15 from 10 to 20 sec, and
so forth.
 Length                   
                 ft.

curve    ,      about the x-axis, where  is measured in

13. The nose cone of a rocket is a paraboloid obtained by revolving the

feet. To estimate the volume V of the nose cone, we partition [0, 5]

into five subintervals of equal length, slice the cone with planes
perpendicular to the x-axis at the subintervals' left-hand endpoints,
and construct cylinders of height 1 based on the cross sections at
these points. See the figure below.

a) Find the sum  of the volumes of the cylinders. Do you expect

 to overestimate  or underestimate  ?

 will underestimate  because the 1st cylinder from    to

cylinders, except for the left end points, do not reach   

   has height 0 and gives no volume, and the other

or     

To get  we have to sum up the volumes of only 4 cylinders.

The volume of a cylinder is  

note that      and    

To get the volume of the cylinder from    to   
(1, 1)

r=1

h=1

So it's volume is    

The radius of the cylinder from    to    is  and its

height is also 1.

The volume of the 2nd cylinder is    Therefore



             

 

         ft 