<p>hey- can anyone help me with this one problem-it's from 2003 ap cal ab MC, and you can use a calculator.</p>
<p>A particle moves along the x axis so that at any time t>0 its acceleration is given by a(t)=ln(1+2^t). If the velocity of the particle is 2 at time t=1, then the velocity at time t=2 is?</p>
<p>When I put this into my calculator(TI-89), it wont' simplify the integral.
Any help will be appreciated...</p>
<p>Mathematica gives the asnswer as -PolyLog[2,-2^t]/Log[2]. I have no idea what a polylog is and would imagine this is why the TI-89 didn't give you an answer. Are you sure you entered the function correctly? It's not t^2 or anything like that?</p>
<p>yea I'm sure
a(t)= ln(1+2^t)
It was on the actual ab test, so it can't be that hard can it?</p>
<p>is 4.196 one of the choices?</p>
<p>no it isn't</p>
<p>Oops I typed it in wrong, what about 3.346</p>
<p>Do this.</p>
<p>Do:</p>
<p>2 + integration of a(t) from 1 to 2</p>
<p>Yeah i got 3.34631 as well</p>
<p>sometimes the calculator can't symbolically integrate non-elementary functions, but they can find a numerical integral (using series approximation)</p>
<p>Oh, I wasn't even paying attention to the fact that it's just a numerical problem. You should use the function nInt for problems like this.</p>