A particle moves along the x-axis so that it's velocity at any time t≥0 is given by v(t)=5te^(-t)-1. At t=0, the particle is a position x=1. What is the total distance travelled from t=0 to t=4?

Question

anonymous · Answer

does total distance mean the amount travelled to the left plus the amount travelled to the right?

agentjamesbond007 · Answer

I'm not certain although the answer is supposed to be 1.465

Taking the integral and adding the initial conditional value will not work

anonymous · Answer

lemme try...

anonymous · Answer

i'm getting 3.873

anonymous · Answer

nowhere close to the answer you said....

anonymous · Answer

integrating the absolute value of the velocity function from t=0 to t=4 is pretty much what you should do.... or so I think...

agentjamesbond007 · Answer

I'm not too good with integrating absolute value. Don't you have to split it? How exactly?

anonymous · Answer

yes...

anonymous · Answer

but when i did that i got that answer of 3.873.

anonymous · Answer

when i removed the absolute value i got 0.908.  still way off.

anonymous · Answer

did you check to see if the problem is written correctly?

agentjamesbond007 · Answer

It's not asking for the position, but the total distance, so I'm assuming you're doing something more with the integration. I copied the problem exactly as it was written.

anonymous · Answer

ok, my bad... i didn't see the t between the 5 and the e(-t) so my function was all wrong.
but I still worked the integral from 0 to 4 and still didn't get 1.465.

agentjamesbond007 · Answer

I'll just ask my professor tomorrow. Thank You for trying to help though

anonymous · Answer

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100429153408AAfUi1u already been done, i had problems with this too. its alot harder than just integrating