| ▲ | messe 3 hours ago | |
An integral trick I picked up from a lecturer at university: if you know the result has to be of the form ax^n for some a that's probably rational and some integer n but you're feeling really lazy and/or it's annoying to simplify (even for mathematica), just plug in a transcendental value for x like Zeta[3]. Then just divide by powers of that irrational number until you have something that looks rational. That'll give you a and n. It's more or less numerical dimensional analysis. It's not that useful for complicated integrals, but when you're feeling lazy it's a fucking godsend to know what the answer should be before you've proven it. EDIT: s/irrational/transcendental/ | ||