Integrate sin^22x

Integrate sin^22x

To integrate sin^22x, also written as ∫sin22x dx, sin squared 2x, (sin2x)^2, and sin^2(2x), we start by considering standard trig identities to simplify the integral.

Double angle trig identity

We recall the double angle formulae and rearrange it for sin2x.

Pythagorean identity

We recall the Pythagorean identity and rearrange it for cos2x.

Substitution and Simplification

We substitute the cos2x expression into the double angle formulae. We then group the sin2x terms on the LHS and simplify to give the above expression. As you can see, the LHS is looking more like our integration problem except that the angle we require is 2x. To get 2x we use a little trick as shown below.

Multiplying angle with constant.

If we multiply the angles on both sides by 2, then we have not changed anything and the equation remains balanced, however, now the LHS looks exactly like our integration problem.

New Integral

As you can see, our integration problem is now in a different form but means the same thing, for the reasons explained in the steps before. The first term is simple to integrate, but the second term will need more thinking.

Let u=4x and differentiate.

We let u = 4x, and therefore du/dx = 4.

A value for dx.

We rearrange to give an expression for dx.

A new integral in terms of u.

Therefore, as you can see, we now have a new integration in terms of u.

integral of cos u.

Hence it simplifies to the expression above with the constant part outside of the integral.

Integral of cosu answer.

We are now left with a simple integration.

Substitution

We then substitute back 4x so that everything is in terms of x.

Final answer.

Finally, we are able to solve our original integration problem by substituting the answer for the second term, and C is the integration constant.