Integrals of Powers of X

Path:  physics insights > basics > Calculus >

The Integral of xn  

This is absolutely basic, and if anything in calculus deserves an intuitive, simple explanation, this is it:

(1)    

Yet this is too often presented merely as the antiderivative of xn , or is derived using epsilonics, or in a few
lines via integration by parts -- with no attempt to motivate it for the easily visualized case where n is an
integer.  (After drawing the illustrations for this page, and working out the arguments given on the pyramids and hypercubes
pages, I confess I acquired a lot of sympathy for authors who just "push symbols" to show this...)

On this page we present a simple motivation for the integral:  It describes the volume of an n+1
dimensional hyperpyramid -- and that volume is something we can easily determine using geometry.  In
short, the result is divided by n+1 because we can pack n+1 pyramids into an n dimensional hypercube --
so the volume of the cube, which is rn+1, is divided by n+1 to obtain the volume of a single pyramid.  The
facts we need about hyperpyramids in order to understand this were developed on our hyperpyramids page
and our hypercubes page.

The rest of this page will be devoted to going into this in more detail.  We'll give a purely geometric
derivation of equation (1) for all positive integers n, and then, using more traditional arguments, we'll
extend the result to cover fractional powers of x, rational powers of x, and finally arbitrary real powers of x.

1. A False Start: The Usual Visualization as Simple Area

We have defined an integral as the area under a curve.  We can use that Figure 1: Integral of x0
0 1
definition directly to evaluate the integrals of x and x .  The area of the
rectangle shown in figure 1 is obviously r units; the area of the triangle shown
in figure 2 is certainly r2 /2 units (since it's bounded by the line y=x, the
height of the triangle is r, as is the base).  We can see at a glance that the
area of a square r units on a side is r2 units; and a triangle is, of course, half
a square, so the area in figure 2 is, just as obviously, r2 /2.

Figure 3: Integral of x2 However, when we get to x2 the "obvious"

nature of the area vanishes (figure 3).  Since the
height is proportional to r2 , and the base is Figure 2: Integral of x1
proportional to r, it's not unreasonable that the
area under the curve should be proportional to
r3 -- but why is the constant of proportionality
1/3?

This is, of course, easy enough to prove, but

drawing it as the area under a parabola does
very little to help with visualizing the result (for
me, at least).

http://www.physicsinsights.org/integral_x2n-1.html[1/12/2015 4:20:30 PM]

Integrals of Powers of X

2. An More Successful Approach: Visualization as a Pyramid

Rather than try to picture the integral as the flat area under a curve, let's look at the formula itself and see
if we can make something more sensible of it.

The expression xn is the n-volume an n dimensional hypercube with length of Figure 4: Integral of x0
side x, as we discussed here.  But if we "sweep" an n dimensional hypercube
along an axis perpendicular to itself, and grow it as we do so, we obtain an
n+1 dimensional hyperpyramid, as we discussed here.  And the volume of
that pyramid is exactly what we obtain by integrating xn .

In figure 4, we show the integral of x0 as a 1 dimensional pyramid, Figure 5: Integral of x2

1
or line segment.  In figure 2, we already showed the integral of x as
a 2 dimensional pyramid, or triangle.  And in figure 5, we show the
integral of x2 as an ordinary 3 pyramid.  

As we saw on the pyramids page, we can pack n n-dimensional

pyramids in an n-dimensional hypercube.  Consequently, the volume
of an n dimensional pyramid r units high, with edges of the base r
units long, is (1/n) rn .

But since the integral of xn from 0 to r is the volume of an n+1

dimensional pyramid, that integral must also be rn+1/(n+1), which is
equation (1).

That's all there is to it, as long as n is a positive integer.  The rest of

this page is devoted to extending the result to cover more general
values for n.

3. The Integral of x1/n

We can evaluate the integral of x1/n by turning it into an integral Figure 6: Integral of x1/n
of the inverse function, yn .  See figure 6.  The integral of yn , plus
the integral of x1/n , exactly fill the rectangle in the figure, which
has area r r1/n .  Thus, we have

(3.1)  

http://www.physicsinsights.org/integral_x2n-1.html[1/12/2015 4:20:30 PM]

Integrals of Powers of X

Turning that around, and plugging in the value we already know

from section 2 for the integral in y, we have:

(3.2)  

which was to be shown.

4. The Integral of x m/n

At this point we need to start "pushing symbols".  To extend our results to Lemma 1: dxn /dx,  n>0
all positive rational powers of x, we substitute:
We know that the derivative of
     an integral is just the function
being integrated, as we saw
here.  For a positive integer n,
which gives us, we know eqn (1) is true;  if we
just differentiate eqn (1), we
get,
(4.1)  
(L1)  

From Lemma 1, we know

(4.2)   or, replacing n+1 with n and

rearranging,
so, plugging that into (4.1) and multiplying out, we have (L2)  

(4.3)  

The integral on the right is a positive integer power of u, and we already know how to do that, so we
finally have

(4.4)  

http://www.physicsinsights.org/integral_x2n-1.html[1/12/2015 4:20:30 PM]

Integrals of Powers of X

which was to be shown.

Note that, when m =1, this covers the case of a fractional power of x which we treated separately in section
3; we didn't actually need to treat that case separately.  However, I like the graphic argument given above,
even though it doesn't cover all cases; the symbol-pushing we used here to prove the general case of xm/n
seems less satisfying to me.

5. The Integral of x s , for any positive real s

We've taken this out of order compared with the "usual" approach, so the first thing we need to do here is
define xs for an irrational s .

We can find xs for any rational value of s :

  

For any real s , we can find rational values m/n which are arbitrarily close to s , and we can find xm/n for
each of them; we just define xs to be the limit of the sequence of values, xm/n , given a sequence of rational
numbers m/n which converges on s .  In turn, the integral of xs is the limit of the sequence of integrals of
those values.

To make this concrete, given an arbitrary real number s , write out its (infinite) decimal expansion:

   s = n.abcdefg....

We can find an example of a sequence of rational numbers which converges to s by chopping all but the
first decimal place for the first term, all but the the first two places for the second term, and so forth:

    n. a
    n.ab
    n.abc
    n.abcd
    ....

This sequence actually converges rather rapidly; on average each term is 1/10 as far from the "final value"
as the preceding term.  After the first few terms, the "total change" in all terms for the entire rest of the
series is going to be very small.

The integral of xs, then, will be defined as the limit of a sequence of integrals:

  

It should be apparent that this sequence converges to a fixed value.  If it isn't, pick a value for s , and draw
n.abcd...

http://www.physicsinsights.org/integral_x2n-1.html[1/12/2015 4:20:30 PM]

Integrals of Powers of X

a few curves representing the first few functions of the form x .  Then look at the area under these
curves.  It should be clear that, as we add decimal places, the area rapidly converges to a fixed value: the
changes caused by adding more decimal places rapidly become minuscule.

Furthermore, the values of the integrals given above, which we can find from the results of the previous
section, converge to exactly the result given by eqn (1):

  

The arguments in this section can be made rigorous without much difficulty, simply by taking the actual
limits in each case, but I don't think it adds a lot to the clarity of the explanation to do that, so I won't.
 (We're already doing far too much "symbol pushing" on this page.)

6. The Integral of xs for Arbitrary Bounds

We've been discussion the integral from 0 to r, where r is a positive real number.

For any positive values a and b, from the definition of the integral as the area under the curve, we have:

(6.1)    

On the other hand, if either a or b is negative we may have a problem, in that fractional powers of negative
numbers are not generally real.  Dealing with complex integrands is beyond the scope of this page, so for
negative bounds we will only consider integral powers of x.

To extend eqn (6.1) to negative bounds as well, all we need is to determine the integral from 0 to -r
where r is positive.  From the definition of the integral, flipping the sign of the integrand flips the sign of the
integral, just as swapping the bounds does; so, for integer n, we have:

(6.2)    

7. The Integral of x -s , for any positive real s ≠ 1

I would love to present a good picture for this, but I don't have one.  What's worse, the only proofs I've
been able to come up with, and the only ones I've seen, either require that one know the behavior of the
exponential function, which we haven't dealt with yet, or require the derivative of x-s, which we haven't
derived yet.  As the lesser of two evils, I'll use the latter, and assume  that

 (Lemma 2)   

(We will prove it later, when we deal with derivatives.)

http://www.physicsinsights.org/integral_x2n-1.html[1/12/2015 4:20:30 PM]

Integrals of Powers of X

We will now proceed with a completely opaque proof-by-symbol.

Given:

(7.1)    

Substitute:

(7.2)    

where t is a nonzero number whose value we will specify later.  We obtain:

(7.3)  

Applying Lemma 2, and collecting terms, we obtain

(7.4)    

In order to apply the result of section (6) to this, the exponent on u must be positive.  Thus, we need to
choose t such that

(7.5)    

We can certainly do that, as long as s  ≠ 1.  And then, applying our earlier results, we obtain

(7.6)    

which was to be shown.

Page created on 10/29/2007; first posted on 11/04/2007

http://www.physicsinsights.org/integral_x2n-1.html[1/12/2015 4:20:30 PM]