Mathematics Hothouse

November 27, 2018 – 10:36 pm

The object of pure Physics is the unfolding of the laws of the intelligible world; the object of pure Mathematic that of unfolding the laws of human intelligence. — J. J. Sylvester.

In my opinion, for example, Boole’s Laws of (Human) Thought.

An observation about Sir Isaac Newton

November 27, 2018 – 10:07 pm

Newton’s patience was limitless. Truth, he said much later, was the offspring of silence and meditation. And, he said, I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little into a full and clear light.

Applications of Derivatives: Training for IITJEE Maths: Part V

November 13, 2018 – 3:16 pm

Question I:

Show that the equation of the tangent to the curve $x=a \frac{f(t)}{h(t)}$ and $y=a \frac{g(t)}{h(t)}$ can be represented in the form:

$\left| \begin{array}{ccc} x & y & a \\ f(t) & g(t) & h(t) \\ f^{'}(t) & g^{'}(t) & h^{'}(t) \end{array} \right|=0$

Question 2:

Show that the derivative of the function $f(x) = x \sin{\frac{\pi}{x}}$ , when $x>0$ and $f(x)=0$ , when $x=0$ vanishes on an infinite set of points of the interval $latex (0,1), Hint: Use Rolle’s theorem.

Question 3:

Prove that $\frac{1}{1+x}<\log (1+x) < x$ for $x>0$ . Use Lagrange’s theorem.

Question 4:

Find the largest term in the sequence $a_{n}=\frac{n^{2}}{n^{3}+200}$ . Hint: Consider the function $f(x)=\frac{x^{2}}{x^{3}+200}$ in the interval $[1,\infty)$ .

Question 5:

A point P is given on the circumference of a circle with radius r. Chords QR are drawn parallel to the tangent at P. Determine the maximum possible area of the triangle PQR.

Question 6:

Find the polynomial $f(x)$ of degree 6, which satisfies $\lim_{x \rightarrow 0} (1+\frac{f(x)}{x^{3}})=e^{2}$ and has a local maximum at $x=1$ and local minimum at $x=0$ and 2.

Question 7:

For the circle $x^{2}+y^{2}=r^{2}$ , find the value of r for which the area enclosed by the tangents drawn from the point $(6,8)$ to the circle and the chord of contact is maximum.