Technical Difficulties

Blogger is not allowing comments on Pages at the moment (there are about a thousand people in the forums complaining about the glitch), which means that no one can leave a comment/question in my "Click Here to Post a Question" area. For now, ask questions as a comment to this post or any other posts. Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon.

Find a (Math) Tutor Near You

When I first created this blog, I wanted to keep it simple because I personally don't like it when I'm browsing other blogs and they take forever to load.

However, I've added another useful tool to the sidebar (in addition to the widget I added yesterday) which I hope you will use. I just discovered a revolutionary website called WyzAnt. This site gives tutors and students a place to find each other without going through the hassle and creepiness-factor of websites like cragslist. All of the tutors must complete an extensive application process and YOU, the student, can have THEM, the tutor(s), background-checked. How neat is that?

WyzAnt not only for math, either. There are tutors there that specialize in everything from SAT-prep to violin lessons to Mandarin Chinese.

If you think that you could benefit from meeting regularly face-to-face with a tutor in your area, type your zip code (or a nearby zip code, if you're internet-scared like I am) into the widget I added to the sidebar. Otherwise, just browse on over to the site anyway and check it out.

Sorry, international friends, WyzAnt is restricted to only the U.S. at the moment (I think, though I didn't see anything that explicitly said that).

Basic Integration By Parts

This is a post based on a question.

If it isn't a problem, can I ask you how to integrate by parts?

The properties of integrals let us split up addition, but not multiplication.

So, when we have two functions MULTIPLIED together, we must use the technique of Integration By Parts.

(Note: In this post I will show the formula and explain how to use it, but I will not show why it works. If anyone would like to see where the formula comes from, please let me know in a comment.)

Notice that there is an integral in the answer! This means that to evaluate the problem completely you must also do that integral at the end. This also means that there is potential for the process repeating over and over (you get the answer, but then you have to use Integration By Parts again), but I titled this post Basic Integration By Parts for a reason; repetition would be Advanced Integration By Parts.

Anyway, this formula is critical. After extensive practice, you will know it by heart just because you will use it so much. Before I was entirely familiar with it, however, I had a chant that helped me remember it. All I said was "u v minus v du," but it was enough for me remember it forever.

Now, let's do an example.

Mathway Widget

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. See that mathy-looking box? That's the Mathway Widget. I'm not entirely sure how it works yet, but I'll update this post with some examples of it once I find time to play around. For now, it's there for you to play around with. Enjoy!

Weekend Pay Problem

This is a post based on a question.

javis works in a garage for 8 hours. if he works on saturday he is paid time and a quater, if he works on sunday he is paid time and a half. last week-end javis for four hours on saturday and 4 hours on sunday. how much is he paid last week-end

NOTE- time and a half means for every hour you work you get paid for one and a half hours.

Let's look at a chart that will help with this problem:

We can also do the problem using a more algebraic approach: