Angle between curves

Calculus Level 2

If the angle between y^2=4x and y=e^(-x/2) is pi/n radians , find n.


The answer is 2.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

Tom Engelsman
Sep 16, 2017

The above curves intersect in the first quadrant of the xy-plane at 2 x = e x / 2 x 0.203888 2\sqrt{x} = e^{-x/2} \Rightarrow x \approx 0.203888 . The angle between the two curves is just the sum of the angles their respective tangents make with the x-axis. These are found by computing the slopes at their common intersection point:

d d x 2 x = 1 x x = 0.203888 = 2.21465 \frac{d}{dx} 2\sqrt{x} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{x}} |_{x=0.203888} = 2.21465 and θ 1 = a r c t a n ( 2.21465 ) = 65.7 \theta_{1} = arctan(2.21465) = 65.7 degrees

d d x e x / 2 = 1 2 e x / 2 x = 0.203888 = 0.45154 \frac{d}{dx} e^{-x/2} = -\frac{1}{2} e^{-x/2} |_{x=0.203888} = -0.45154 and θ 2 = a r c t a n ( 0.45154 ) = 24.3 \theta_{2} = arctan(0.45154) = 24.3 degrees

Hence, θ 1 + θ 2 = 90 \theta_{1} + \theta_{2} = 90 degrees, or π 2 \boxed{\frac{\pi}{2}} radians.

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...