I'm working on my math homework, which I put off all day and which is due tomorrow, and I'm stuck on a problem. Normally I'd get help from friends but I procrastinated too much and it's due tomorrow...so I figured I'd see if any of you had any idea. No big deal if you don't, it's only homework. But some of you guys are really good at math, so here it is:

I need to find the indefinite integral of dx/(cos(x)-1)

I really don't know where to go with this one....I've multiplied it all by cos(x)+1 to get (cos(x)^2)-1 on the bottom, which I've turned into -(sin(x)^2), then taken the negative out of the integral, which feels like a step in the right direction MAYBE... but from here I'm just plain stuck. Any ideas?

Is that 1/cos(x) - 1 or 1/cos(x-1) ?

Oops, sorry, went back and fixed my laziness.

So you ended up with cos(x)-1/cos[sup]2[/sup](x)-2cos(x) by multiplying by (cos(x)-1)/(cos(x)-1)

I'm sorry, my brain is fried. Fixed again. I multiplied by cos(x) + 1 to get what I got. I don't even know if that's the right first step, though.

Yeah, you're almost there.

Ah screw it. I was going to type it, but it was getting confusing. I've attached a handwritten version. Excuse my poor handwriting, I'm not all that good with the tablet.

Oh, wow! Thanks!

You know, I had even started down that path, splitting it up, but I just didn't write it down, so I never saw it to make it click that it would be a bunch of simple identities. Goes to show that you just have to write down your ideas and see where they go sometimes. That actually turned out to be about the second easiest problem of my entire homework set.

Oh, and by the way, your "bad" tablet handwriting looks better and more readable than my almost-20-years-of-practice actual handwriting looks.

I know how to add and solve simple equations. That's pretty much the extent of my math knowledge.

You're welcome.



It looks better when I write in Jarnal or similar applications. Paint is pretty bad for this kind of stuff.