Author SD&IC
University of Aberdeen Date 14.10.04
Department of Mathematical Sciences Code mth203-105072-2
EG1006 Engineering Mathematics 1
Revision
1. Use the Pascal triangle to obtain the expansions of
(x + y)7 and (x + 1/x)8 .
2. What is the coefficient of x2 in the expansion of (x + 1/x)20 ?
3. As practice in the use of notation, write out the following sums in full.
5
X 4
X 2
X
2 3
n , n , j(j + 1).
n=1 n=0 j=2
4. The binomial theorem can be stated with summation notation as
Xn
n n nk k
(x + y) = x y .
k
k=0
This formula is true for all values of x and y. So you would get a true statement if you
replaced x and y by particular numbers. That is what I want you to do here. By choosing
suitable values for x and y show that:
n
X n
X
n n k n
=2 , (1) = 0.
k k
k=0 k=0
5. Show that the straight line L passing through (3, 4) and (6, 10) has equation y = 2x 2.
What is the equation of the straight line through the point where L meets the y-axis which
is perpendicular to L? Show that these two lines and the x-axis form a triangle of area 5.
6. Find the equation of the straight line through the point (1, 6) with slope 2. Find the points
P ,Q where this line meets the x and the y axes respectively. Find the coordinates of the
point R on the line half way between P and Q. Find the equation of the circle with P Q as
diameter. Find the coordinates of the points where the line x + y = 1 meets this circle.
7. A circle has centre at (1,2) and radius 3. What is its equation? Find the coordinates of the
four points in which this
circle meets the axes. Show that the quadrilateral formed by these
four points has area 4 10.
Revision 14.10.04 page 2
8. Use the formulae for sin( + ) and cos( + ) together with the identity sin2 + cos2 = 1
to obtain formulae for sin(2x), cos(2x), sin(3x), cos(3x), sin(4x) and cos(4x),in terms of sin x
and cos x.
The last three questions on the sheet are to give those of you whose mathematical background
is good enough to make the previous questions so easy as to be scarcely worth doing. The
rest of you can ignore them.
9. A water tank has three drainage taps of different sizes. Tap A will drain the tank in twenty
minutes, tap B in thirty and tap C in forty. How long will it take to drain the tank if all
three are taps are opened? (You may assume that the taps do not interfere with each others
efficient operation.)
10. When you plot experimental data in the hope of discovering a physical law, the thing that
you are always half hoping will appear is a straight line. Of course, not all physical laws are
that simple, but you can often get round this by changing what you plot. For example, if
you suspect that the quantities x, y that you have been measuring are related by a law of the
form y = a + bx2 for some numbers a, b, the way both to verify your suspicion and to find the
values for a and b is to plot, not y against x, but y against x2 . The following experimental
data gives values for the solubility of a certain chemical in water at various temperatures:
T / C 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
s/mol m 3 32.8 38.7 45.7 54.1 64.0 75.7 89.5
Draw a suitable graph to show that, allowing for small errors in observation, there is a
relationship between s and T of the form s = 16 + aT + bT 3 and find a and b.
11. This is a calculating device known to bookmakers. It concerns the situation where a client
picks three horses, A, B, C and makes a set of bets, all at the same stake. The bets are A
to win, B to win, C to win, A and B both to win, A and C both to win,B and
C both to win, and A, B and C all to win. So there are seven bets in all. The point
of the trick is to enable you to work out the total payout quickly and in your head. I shall
pay you the compliment of assuming you know nothing about betting on horses and explain
how it works: When a bookmaker offers odds of say 31 against a horse, he means that each
pound staked by the client will produce winnings of 3 if the horse wins; so the client hands
over his pound, and if he is lucky his return is 4 (his original stake plus his winnings).
When stating odds fractions are avoided; so you say 92 rather than 4.51. With a bet such
as A and B both to win what happens is that your stake initially goes on horse A, and
if this wins the whole of the return is wagered on horse B. It is easy to work out that the
return on a successful double is the product of what would have been the returns on the
two singles, i.e. if a 1 stake on A would have given a return ra , and one on B a return rb ,
then the return for a 1 stake on A and B both to win is ra rb . With a treble you multiply
the three individual returns. The claim is that, if the three horses are at odds of x1 y1 , x2 y2
and x3 y3 , the return on the three singles, three doubles and a treble bet is one less than
would be the return on a simple treble at odds of (x1 + y1 )y1 , (x2 + y2 )y2 and (x3 + y3 )y3 .
So, if the three horses are offered at 21, 31 and 72, the bookmaker modifies this to 31,
41 and 92, multiplies the three returns of 4, 5 and 5.5 getting 110, and then subtracts 1 to
get the payout to the client of 109. The question is why does this give the right answer?
Author SD&IC
University of Aberdeen Date 14.10.04
Department of Mathematical Sciences Code mth203-105073-3
EG1006 Engineering Mathematics 1
Solutions to Revision
1. The first few rows of the Pascal triangle are:
n=0 1
n=1 1 1
n=2 1 2 1
n=3 1 3 3 1
n=4 1 4 6 4 1
n=5 1 5 10 10 5 1
n=6 1 6 15 20 15 6 1
n=7 1 7 21 35 35 21 7 1
n=8 1 8 28 56 70 56 28 8 1
So
(x + y)7 = x7 + 7x6 y + 21x5 y 2 + 35x4 y 3 + 35x3 y 4 + 21x2 y 5 + 7xy 6 + y 7
You do exactly the same thing for (x + 1/x)8 . If in doubt, expand the expression (x + y)8
and then replace y by 1/x. The answer is
1 8 1 1 1 1
(x + ) = x8 + 8x6 + 28x4 + 56x2 + 70 + 56 2 + 28 4 + 8 6 + 8
x x x x x
2. If you feel energetic you can expand (x + 1/x)20 out in full and pick out the term(s) which
just involve x rather than some power of x. Alternatively, you can use your head first. Any
term in the expansion of this expression will have the form:
20 20m 1
x .
m xm
The net power of x in this term is 20 m m = 20 2m. If this is to be x2 then we must
have m = 9. So the required coefficient is:
20 20!
= = 167960
9 9! 11!
3. The expansions are:
5
X
n2 = 12 + 22 + 32 + 42 + 52 = 55
n=1
X4
n3 = 03 + 13 + 23 + 33 + 43 = 100
n=0
2
X
j(j + 1) = 2(2 + 1) + (1)(1 + 1) + 0(0 + 1) + 1(1 + 1) + 2(2 + 1) = 10
j=2
Solutions to Revision 14.10.04 page 2
4. For the first one, put x = y = 1. For the second one, put x = 1 and y = 1.
5. The equation of the straight line through (x0 , y0 ) and (x1 , y1 ) is:
y y0 y1 y0
=
x x0 x1 x 0
In this case we can take x0 = 3, y0 = 4, x1 = 6, y1 = 10. So the equation of L is:
y4 10 4
= =2
x3 63
So the answer is y 4 = 2x 6 or y = 2x 2.
The line L meets the y-axis when x = 0 and, therefore, y = 2. Any line perpendicular to
L has slope 12 . This one passes through (0, 2) The equation of the line through (x0 , y0 )
with slope m is
y y0 = m(x x0 )
So the line sought has equation:
1
y + 2 = (x 0)or2y = 4 x
2
This line meets the x-axis at x = 4.
The required area of the triangle is 12 base height, which gives 2 5/2 = 5.
6. The straight line has equation y 6 = 2(x 1). When y = 0 we have x = 2, so P = (2, 0).
When x = 0 we have y = 4, so Q = (0, 4). We get the coordinates of R by adding up
corresponding coordinates of P and Q and dividing by 2, so R = (1, 2). The radius of the
circle with P Q as diameter is half of P Q. By Pythagoras, P Q2 = 22 +42 . So the radius is 5.
We can now write down the equation of the circle as (x + 1)2 + (y 2)2 = 5, which simplifies
to x2 + y 2 + 2x 4y = 0. To find the points of intersection with the line x + y = 1, write the
line equation as y = 1 x and substitute this expression for y in the circle equation. The
2
result is the quadratic 2x + 4x 3 = 0, which has roots x = 1 10/2. These two values
for x are the x-coordinates of the points of intersection;
to get the corresponding values for
y use the equation y = 1 x, getting y = 2 10/2.
7. The equation of the circle centre (a, b) and radius r is
(x a)2 + (y b)2 = r 2
In this case:
(x 1)2 + (y 2)2 = 9orx2 2x + y 2 4y = 4
When x = 0 the equation for y is (y 2)2 = 8 which gives the answers y = 2 8. When
y = 0 the equation for x is (x 1)2 = 5 which gives the answers x = 1 5. The vertices of
Solutions to Revision 14.10.04 page 3
+ 8), (1 5, 0) , (0, 2
the quadrilateral are (1 + 5, 0) , (0, 2 8). To get the area, think
of this as two triangles each of base 2 5. One has height 2 + 8 and the other has height
8 2 (be careful about the sign, the coordinate is negative). So the area of the quadrilateral
is
area = 5 (2 + 8 + 8 2) = 2 5 8 = 4 10.
8. The first two are very easy. Just put = = x in the formulae for sin( + ) and cos( + ).
sin(2x) = sin(x + x)
= sin x cos x + cos x sin x
= 2 sin x cos x
In the same way,
cos(2x) = cos x cos x sin x sin x
= cos2 x sin2 x
= cos2 x (1 cos2 x)
= 2 cos2 x 1
= 1 2 sin2 xsimilarly
Continuing in the same vein,
sin 3x = sin(x + 2x) = sin x cos 2x + cos x sin 2x = sin x(2 cos2 x 1) + cos x(2 sin x cos x)
So
sin 3x = 4 sin x cos2 x sin x
Similarly
cos 3x = cos x 4 cos x sin2 x
For sin 4x and cos 4x you can either think of 4x as 3x + x or as 2x + 2x.
sin(4x) = sin(2x + 2x)
= 2 sin 2x cos 2x
= 2(2 sin x cos x)(cos2 x sin2 x)
= 4 sin x cos3 x 4 sin3 x cos x
cos(4x) = 1 2 sin2 2x
= 1 2(2 sin x cos x)2
= 1 8 sin2 x cos2 x
With all these last four you can get alternative forms for the answer by making use of
sin2 x + cos2 x = 1. So if your answer differs from mine, try to turn it into mine by making
use of this identity.
Revision 14.10.04 page 4
9. One way to think of this is to work out how much each tank could empty in two hours. Tap
A could empty 6 tanks, tap B 4 and tap C 3. Therefore, the three together could empty 13.
So, if they can empty 13 in 120 minutes, it takes them 120/13 9.23 minutes to empty one.
The alternative approach is to think in terms of speeds. Speed is inversely proportional to
time, and the three emptying speeds add. So if t is the time the tank takes to empty when
all the taps are open,
1 1 1 1
= + + .
t 20 30 40
10. Rearrange the supposed relationship as s 16 = aT + bT 3 and then divide both sides by T .
You are then looking at something of the form y = mx + c, i.e. at a line equation with y
replaced by (s 16)/T and x replaced by T 2 . So the plot to make is (s 16)/T against T 2 .
This should give you the values a = .72 and b = .0003.
11. If the odds on horse A are xa ya , the winnings for a one pound stake are xa /ya , and so the
return, ra , is 1 + (xa /ya ) (return=stake+winnings). If all three horses win, the return on the
seven bets is ra + rb + rc + ra rb + ra rc + rb rc + ra rb rc . Now look at the effect on the returns
of modifying the odds in the way indicated. Changing xa ya to (xa + ya )ya would increase
the winnings to (xa + ya )/ya i.e. to (xa /ya ) + 1. So the winnings for a one pound stake have
been increased by one; so also has the return. This means that the return on the modified
treble is (ra + 1)(rb + 1)(rc + 1). Multiply this expression out and compare it with the earlier
one.
