Name:_______________________ Date assigned:______________

Band:________

Multivariable Calculus | Packer Collegiate Institute

Double Integrals, or an infinity of infinitely thin slices of cake…

You have an infinite surface: z=x2ey+2 . Notice that the height of the function will always
be positive!

We want to estimate the volume under the

surface on the region (on the xy-plane)
specified below:
y

1 2

In order to do this, we are going to find the volume of 10 little “slices” and add them
together.

In order to estimate the volume of each slice, we are

y

2
slice 10
going to do some calculations:

Estimation of the volume of SLICE 1: 01(x2e0.1+2)dx(0.2)

1
Explain in words how this estimates the volume of slice 1.
slice 3

slice 2

slice 1 x

1 2

Estimation of the volume of SLICE 2: ____________________

Estimation of the volume of SLICE 3: ____________________

…
Estimation of the volume of SLICE 10: ___________________

Use your calculator (fnInt) to evaluate these volumes and come up with an approximate
volume.
The volume is
approximately:

The volume for each slice actually comes from evaluating the function at a specific y
value (notice for Slice 1, we plugged in y=0.1; for Slice 2, we plugged in y=0.3; … for
Slice 10, we plugged in y=1.9). So in essence, by doing the integral when y=0.1, we’re
getting a cross-sectional area for that slice. To get the volume, we simply multiply this
area by the width (in this case, the width was 0.2).

Now let’s start to generalize and get more exact.

How can we make this more exact?

1) We make a(n) ________________ number of slices.

2) We make the width of each slice ______________.

We also have to remember what integration means. Integration is just a fancy way of
saying we are adding an infinite sum up…

The Finish Line

A. What is the volume of a slice which is infinitely thin (meaning it has a width of dy)
at an arbitrary y value?

B. Now if we wanted to add up an infinite number of these infinitely thin slices from
y=0 to y=2, how might we express that?

CHECKING OUR ESTIMATION

Evaluate the result you got from part B above. How does that compare with your
estimation?