What is the integral of x3cos(x2)dx?

1 Answer
Mar 21, 2016

12x2sin(x2)+12cos(x2)+C

Explanation:

We can't just integrate straight away, so we try substitution.

While trying substitution, we observe that we could integrate cos(x2)xdx by substitution.

So, let's split the integrand and use integration by parts.

x3cos(x2)dx=x2cos(x2)xdx

(We notice that we could rewrite this as ucos(u)12du, but we don't see how to integrate that, so we'll continue with parts for now.)

x2cos(x2)xdx

Let u=x2 and dv=cos(x2)xdx.

Clearly du=2xdx, and

we can integrate dv by substitution to get.

12sin(x2).

uvvdu=12x2sin(x2)xsin(x2)dx

Integrate by substitution agan to finish.

x3cos(x2)dx=12x2sin(x2)+12cos(x2)+C

Check the answer by differentiating.