Trevor rides Jake piggyback I

Calculus Level 4

It's a beautiful Saturday morning. The wind is light yet refreshing, the sun warm and mellow, and the Trevor is riding Jake piggyback upon the verdant turf of the first golf course.

Starting at ( 0 , 0 ) (0,0) , Trevor tells his serf to advance north by 1 1 meter and turn 9 0 90^{\circ} clockwise. Jake, with his incredibly exact eyesight, does just that. At each nth step, he walks 1 n \frac{1}{n} meter and turns 9 0 90^{\circ} clockwise.

What is the displacement in meters Trevor and Jake have travelled from the origin? If it can be expressed in the form 1 2 ln 2 a + π 2 b \frac{1}{2} \sqrt{\ln^{2} a + \frac{\pi^{2}}{b}} , where a a and b b are positive integers, what is a + b a+b ?


The answer is 6.

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1 solution

Prasun Biswas
May 10, 2015

First, define a "step" as one north-east-south-west travel done successively. It is obvious that travelling north/south increases/decreases y y -coordinate and travelling east/west increases/decreases x x -coordinate.

Let the symbol \to denote the transition from one step to the other and ( a , b ) ( c , d ) (a,b)\to (c,d) means that Trev-Jake displaced from ( a , b ) (a,b) to ( c , d ) (c,d) after a step. From the given data, we have,

( 0 , 0 ) ( 1 2 1 4 , 1 1 3 ) ( 1 2 1 4 + 1 6 1 8 , 1 1 3 + 1 5 1 7 ) (0,0)\to \left(\frac12-\frac14,1-\frac13\right)\to \left(\frac12-\frac14+\frac16-\frac18,1-\frac13+\frac15-\frac17\right)\to \ldots

As the steps continue ad infinitum, the limiting displacement point can be given as,

( X , Y ) = ( n = 0 ( 1 ) n 2 ( n + 1 ) , n = 0 ( 1 ) n 2 n + 1 ) (X,Y)=\left(\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{(-1)^{n}}{2(n+1)}~,~\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{(-1)^{n}}{2n+1}\right)

We need to compute X X and Y Y . Now, by the Maclaurin series of arctan ( x ) \arctan(x) and ln ( 1 + x ) \ln(1+x) , we can obtain that,

X = n = 0 ( 1 ) n 2 ( n + 1 ) = 1 2 n = 0 ( 1 ) n n + 1 = 1 2 ln ( 1 + 1 ) = 1 2 ln 2 Y = n = 0 ( 1 ) n 2 n + 1 = arctan ( 1 ) = π 4 X=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{(-1)^{n}}{2(n+1)}=\frac{1}{2}\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{(-1)^{n}}{n+1}=\frac12\ln(1+1)=\frac12\ln2\\ Y=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{(-1)^{n}}{2n+1}=\arctan(1)=\frac{\pi}{4}

Using the distance formula, we can easily find the displacement as follows:

Displacement ( s ) = ( X 0 ) 2 + ( Y 0 ) 2 = X 2 + Y 2 = 1 4 ln 2 2 + π 2 16 = 1 2 ln 2 2 + π 2 4 \begin{aligned}\textrm{Displacement}(s)&=\sqrt{(X-0)^2+(Y-0)^2}\\&=\sqrt{X^2+Y^2}\\&=\sqrt{\frac{1}{4}\ln^22+\frac{\pi^2}{16}}=\frac12\sqrt{\ln^22+\frac{\pi^2}{4}}\end{aligned}

Comparing values with the given form in question gives us the answer as 2 + 4 = 6 2+4=\boxed{6} .

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