Question #e7b85

1 Answer
Jan 6, 2018

#x^8/8+x^7/7+x^6/6+x^5/5+x^4/4+x^3/3+x^2/2+x+C#

Explanation:

I will begin by splitting the integral up into two:
#int\ (1-x^8)/(1-x)\ dx=int\ 1/(1-x)\ dx-int\ x^8/(1-x)\ dx#

I will call the left one Integral 1 and the right one Integral 2.

Integral 1
To crack this, I will introduce a u-substitution with #u=1-x#, and the derivative being #-1#, so we divide through by #-1# to integrate with respect to #u#:
#int\ 1/(1-x)\ dx=int\ 1/(-1*u)\ du=-int\ 1/u\ du=-ln|u|=-ln|1-x|#

Integral 2
Since the numerator of this integral is of greater degree than the denominator, we use polynomial long division to simplify like so:
#int\ 1/(1-x)-x^7-x^6-x^5-x^4-x^3-x^2-x-1\ dx=#

We already worked out the first bit in Integral 1, and the rest can be computed with the reverse power rule:
#=-ln(1-x)-x^8/8-x^7/7-x^6/6-x^5/5-x^4/4-x^3/3-x^2/2-x#

Completing the original integral
Now that we know the answer to Integral 1 and Integral 2, we can put them together to get the answer for the original integral:
#-ln(1-x)-(-ln(1-x)-x^8/8-x^7/7-x^6/6-x^5/5-x^4/4-x^3/3-x^2/2-x)#

#=-ln(1-x)+ln(1-x)+x^8/8+x^7/7+x^6/6+x^5/5+x^4/4+x^3/3+x^2/2+x#

#=x^8/8+x^7/7+x^6/6+x^5/5+x^4/4+x^3/3+x^2/2+x+C#