By Newton's second law, the central force obeys
Differentiating the cross product gives
since the acceleration is parallel to . Hence is constant. Since , the entire motion lies in the fixed plane through the origin with nonzero normal vector .
Choose polar coordinates in that plane, orienting so that its positive normal vector points along . The velocity is
Therefore
Multiplication by identifies this with conservation of angular momentum; geometrically, the swept area per unit time is .
Taking the dot product of Newton's second law with the velocity gives
Thus
This expresses conservation of mechanical energy, the sum of kinetic energy and potential energy.
Finally, for and a prime denoting a derivative with respect to , the chain rule gives
Substitution into the conserved energy yields
In cylindrical coordinates,
Differentiating the position vector twice gives the velocity and acceleration
This derives acceleration in cylindrical coordinates rather than assuming it.
At a fixed time, the wire has parametrization . Its derivative is the nonzero tangent vector
A smooth wire exerts a constraint force with . Because is the gravitational acceleration, the gravitational force is ; the printed is interpreted per unit mass. Projecting Newton's second law, , along eliminates :
The chain rule gives . Rearrangement yields
This is the governing equation for a bead on a uniformly rotating wire. Its azimuthal acceleration contributes nothing to the projection because .
Write . The cylindrical coordinates give and , so the vector components of the vector field are
The first two components of the curl, calculated in Cartesian coordinates, are and . For the third component, the chain rule gives
and hence
Combining these vector components in the cylindrical basis yields
The restriction matters because the cylindrical basis is undefined on the axis.
Here is a scalar field: the source's description as a vector field is a typographical slip, since the displayed formula is for its gradient. For cylindrical coordinates, write , . Away from , a local choice of gives the partial derivatives
The chain rule therefore gives
Use the Cartesian coordinates definition and the unit vectors
Collecting their coefficients proves
This is the gradient in cylindrical coordinates. The factor converts a change in angle into a change per unit arc length.
Write with , . The chain rule gives the differential operators
Their squared difference is
Consequently the wave equation becomes . Integrating first in gives ; integrating in gives the general solution
The arbitrary twice differentiable functions describe right-moving and left-moving waves, respectively. Conversely the chain rule shows that each such sum satisfies the wave equation.
No. On take and
At zero, its difference quotient has absolute value , so . Away from zero, the product rule and chain rule apply. Define
These are distinct positive inputs tending to zero. Since and ,
The even-indexed subsequence tends to , whereas the odd-indexed subsequence tends to . Thus the limit of a sequence does not exist. The two points lie on the same side of , so the nonnegative-weight estimate in part (b) is unavailable. This is a concrete instance of differentiability does not imply continuity of the derivative.
Write . In polar coordinates, Newton's second law per unit mass gives the radial and transverse equations of motion
The transverse equation implies
This is conservation of angular momentum per unit mass. For the nonradial trajectory in the next part, choose orientation so . With and primes denoting derivatives with respect to , the chain rule gives
Substituting into the radial equation yields , hence
The change of independent variable requires ; a purely radial trajectory instead has constant .
Write , where and . The chain rule gives
For a twice continuously differentiable classical solution, mixed partial derivatives commute, so the wave equation becomes
Hence depends only on . Integrating first in yields the countertravelling decomposition of the one-dimensional wave equation:
On a rectangular domain in this follows immediately; on the full line for , the connected characteristic slices give the same representation. The two terms travel at wave speed one in opposite directions.
Impose the initial conditions. At ,
Differentiate the first identity and combine:
If , then and . Substitution cancels and the arbitrary base point , giving D'Alembert's formula:
For example, and make this a classical solution of the wave equation satisfying both initial conditions. The same formula defines a weak solution for less regular data, including the continuous piecewise smooth data of part (b).
For , the chain rule gives . Applying the product rule to the components of the vector field yields
The calculation is pointwise away from the origin; any extension of the vector field to the origin must be considered separately.
The printed arguments and assume unit wave speed. For the stated wave equation with general , the correct arguments are and , as in the paper's subsequent formula. Equivalently, use rescaled time to obtain the printed unit-speed form.
Introduce coordinates , along the characteristic lines for the one-dimensional wave equation, and write . The chain rule gives
so the wave equation becomes
Thus is independent of , and integration gives the countertravelling decomposition of the one-dimensional wave equation
Conversely, differentiating this expression twice verifies the wave equation for any sufficiently differentiable .
The two initial conditions give
Differentiating the first and solving these two equations for the derivatives gives
For a fixed reference point , their antiderivatives can be written
Substituting the two travelling arguments cancels the constants and combines the integrals. This proves D'Alembert's formula with initial velocity:
At the integral vanishes, giving ; differentiating by the fundamental theorem of calculus gives there. These checks also fix the sign and the factor .
The endpoint radii are and , but substituting those two numbers in the finite conical frustum formula is invalid. A rotation about the -axis preserves the horizontal angle between the endpoint position vectors; here and are not parallel. The radius along the generating segment is not linear in height.
Parametrize the actual segment by
Its rotated circle at height has radius
Thus the rotated image is the surface of revolution . Applying the conical frustum formula to infinitesimal pieces of this radial profile, or directly using the cross product as in ii, gives the surface area of a surface of revolution
To evaluate it explicitly, put . Then . Define
The chain rule gives , so the answer is
The positive logarithm arguments make this a real-valued expression. Rotating the segment's endpoints independently into one vertical plane before joining them would instead create a different surface, with surface area .
Figure 1.
The rotated segment has a curved radial profile, although its three-dimensional generator is straight.
Details.
Write . Differentiating the angular momentum and applying Newton's second law gives
The central force contributes no torque, because it is parallel to . The angular momentum direction is fixed whenever it is nonzero; the motion is consequently planar. In the plane's polar coordinates, , so
For the mechanical energy, use the chain rule, Newton's second law, and :
Thus
For a trajectory on a time interval, both and are each a constant of motion precisely when or the velocity vanishes throughout that interval. Under the stated strictly attractive central force at a regular point , a permanently stationary trajectory is impossible by Newton's second law. For the stated attractive motion, both are conserved if and only if . An isolated instant of zero speed only makes the derivatives vanish at that instant. A radial trajectory has even with quadratic drag, but its mechanical energy still decreases whenever it moves.
For a smooth surface the friction force vanishes. The component of Newton's second law then gives , constant. Along the constraint , the chain rule gives
The acceleration in cylindrical coordinates is
Take the dot product of Newton's second law with the tangent vector . The normal force disappears, while the gravity term is . Dividing by gives
Using yields
All time derivatives in this part are taken relative to the rotating reference frame, so its basis is held fixed during differentiation. Put and . The chain rule and product rule give
Explicitly,
The separate Coriolis force and centrifugal force terms in the stated equation account for the motion of the basis relative to an inertial observer.
For polar coordinates, the rotating unit vectors satisfy and . Applying the product rule twice to gives the velocity and acceleration
Newton's second law for a central force now gives
Multiplying the azimuthal force equation by yields
This is conservation of specific angular momentum. Here is the signed radial component of the force; a negative value points inward.
When , is a valid local parameter along the trajectory. Put and let primes denote derivatives with respect to . The chain rule yields
Substituting into the radial Newton's second law equation and dividing by proves the Binet equation:
Here , so the Binet equation reduces to
The initial conditions become
Multiply the differential equation by and use the chain rule:
The initial conditions give . Since , cannot change sign at a finite value of . Thus on the physical branch. Separation of variables gives
Therefore
The natural logarithm must be positive because . For the forward trajectory, and , so : the particle travels counterclockwise while strictly decreases.
For , it starts at , with tangent vector proportional to . Its successive crossings of the positive coordinate axis have radii
It makes infinitely many inward turns, approaching the origin as . There is no finite-time arrival at the origin: behaves as , whose improper integral diverges. If extended backwards, it comes from infinity as .
Figure 1.
Forward central-force trajectory for a=1, with arrows showing counterclockwise inward motion
. Details.
All forces on the first particle lie in the plane spanned by and : this holds for gravity, tension, and the normal reaction. Hence the azimuthal component of Newton's second law vanishes:
Using the product rule gives
Strictly, is the axial specific angular momentum; the actual axial angular momentum is , which is conserved as well.
Differentiate the stated total energy using the chain rule and then substitute the two Newton's second law equations:
The gravitational potential energy terms have canceled the power of gravity. Also is proportional to , whose dot product with is . Thus the stationary smooth mechanical constraint does no work. The remaining tension powers cancel by part (b), proving and conservation of total energy while the massless inextensible string remains taut and contact is maintained.
With , the chain rule gives . Thus
Separation of variables gives the eigenfunctions with time factors . The Fourier sine coefficients of the initial constant are
Only odd modes survive, so
Returning to , , hence
For every the exponential coefficients give uniform convergence of the differentiated series on later-time compact sets, verifying the PDE and boundary conditions. As , the solution tends to at every interior point and in L2 norm, while remaining zero at the endpoints. The expression is visibly even in , consistent with the corrected symmetry argument for .
Divide Newton's second law by the mass and resolve along the radial and transverse unit vectors in polar coordinates. A central force has no transverse component, so
Multiplication of the second equation by shows that . Thus
where is the signed specific angular momentum perpendicular to the orbital plane.
If and , the polar angle is locally a valid independent variable. For , use primes for derivatives with respect to . The chain rule gives
Substitution into the radial equation gives the Binet equation
If , the orbit is radial and division by is unavailable; the first radial equation still applies with away from the origin.
An orientation-preserving reparametrization has the form , where is an increasing, piecewise smooth change of parameter with , . For regular parametrizations one may take and its inverse continuously differentiable on each piece. The chain rule gives . The change of variables therefore yields
This proves reparametrization invariance of a vector line integral. If is decreasing, the endpoints in the final integral are reversed and the sign changes. Thus the same direction and the same multiplicity of traversal are essential.