2.

1 Areas Between Curves

A.1 Use integrals to compute area.

Motivating Question: How can we find areas that are bounded by more than one curve?

Example 1: Find the area enclosed by y = 4 − x2 and y = x2 .

4 Two possible approaches:

3
(1) Find the area under and
2 the area under .

1 (2) Use where the height is

the between the two functions.
−2 −1 1 2
 The area between the graphs of y = f (x) and
y=f(x)
y = g(x) over the interval [a, b] (the shaded
area in the picture to the left) can be found
by using the following integral:

y=g(x)

a b

Example 2: Sketch a graph of the region enclosed by the curves y = x2 and y = x + 2 on

the axes below. Then set up an integral that would give the area of this region.

−2 −1 1 2

Example 3: Sketch a graph of the region between the curves y = cos(x) and y = sin(x)
over the interval [0, π] on the axes below. Then set up an expression that would give the
area of this region.

1/2

π π 3π π
4 2 4
−1/2

−1

2
What if you don’t have a “top” and a “bottom” function but instead two “side-by-side”
functions? In other words, what if you don’t have functions of x, but rather, functions of y?

The area between the graphs of x = f (y) and

x = g(y) over the interval [a, b] (the shaded
d area in the picture to the left) can be found
x=g(y) by using the following integral:
x=f(y)

Example 3: Sketch a graph of the region enclosed by the curves x = y 2 − 2 and y = −x on

the axes below. Then set up an integral that would give the area of this region.

−2 −1 1 2
−1

−2

General Method for Finding Area Between Curves:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

3
 Practice Problems

Use integrals to find the area between the following curves:

x
1. y = and x = y 2
3

2. y = |x| and y + 2 = x2

Challenge! How could you approach finding the area between y = 2 sin x and x = 2 sin y?