What is the integral of xcos(x)?

2 Answers
Dec 20, 2014

You use idea of the integrating by parts:
int uv'dx = uv - intu'vdx

intx cosxdx =
Let:
u = x
u' = 1
v' = cosx
v = sinx

Then:
intx cosxdx = xsinx - int 1*sinxdx = xsinx - (-cosx) = xsinx+cosx

Dec 20, 2014

The integral is:
x*sin(x)+cos(x)+C
You can get this result Integrating by Parts .
In general if you have the product of two functions f(x)*g(x) you can try this method in which you have:
intf(x)*g(x)dx=F(x)*g(x)-intF(x)*g'(x)dx

The integral of the product of the two functions is equal to the product of the integral ( F(x) ) of the first times the second function ( g(x) ) minus the integral of ther product of the integral of the first function ( F(x) ) times the derivative of the second function ( g'(x) ). Hopefully the last integral should be easier to solve than the starting one!!!

In your case you get (you can choose which one is f(x) to help you to make the solution easier ):

f(x)=cos(x)

g(x)=x

F(x)=sin(x)

g'(x)=1

And finally:
intx*cos(x)dx=x*sin(x)-int1*sin(x)dx=x*sin(x)+cos(x)+C
You can now check your answer by deriving this result.