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Integration of (x^2+1)/(x^6+1)

I would be glad if anyone can give me a hint on the above.I tried different substitutions,but they only seem to be leading this to a more complicated one.

If this is an intermediate step in some problem, then it's almost certain that you've got it wrong somewhere. This is a very complicated and ugly integral. It might help if there were some limits on it: you'd be better off posting the full question on here.

That said, if it is a problem in it's own right, then note that $x^6 +1 = (x^2)^3 + 1 = (x^2 + 1)(x^4 - x^2 + 1)$ so ignoring the removable singularities we have $$\int \frac{x^2+1}{x^3 +1} \, \mathrm{d}x = \int \frac{\mathrm{d}x}{x^4 - x^2 + 1}$$.

Now note that $x^4 - x^2 +1 = x^4 + 2x^2 + 1 - 3x^2 = (x^2 + 1)^2 - (\sqrt{3}x)^2$ which is the difference of two squares so we can get a factorisation. Then some partial fractions and a lot of extra tedious work will get you something involving square roots, logarithms and arctans in your answer.

This is the complete problem,and to add it boundaries are 0 & infinity..anyway thanks

Out of interest I asked Wolfram Alpha to work out the antiderivative (just to see how messy it was) and it was horrible, but the definite integral to infinity is cool: \[\int^\infty_0\frac{x^2+1}{x^6+1}\,dx=\frac{\pi}{2}\] No idea how you would prove that.

[disclaimer: this is slightly more advanced maths than that would appear on a STEP paper - contour integration is second year material at Cambridge, so this is just for fun!]

It's a general result (most easily provable using contour integration that $\displaystyle \int_0^{\infty} \frac{1}{x^{n} + 1} = \frac{\pi}{n\sin \frac{\pi}{n}}$ or alternatively, some double integrals and a handy beta/gamma spot works).

Here we have $$\int_0^{\infty} \frac{x^2}{x^6 + 1} \, \mathrm{d}x + \int_0^{\infty} \frac{1}{x^6 +1}$$ the former can be expressed as $\int_0^{\infty} \frac{\mathrm{d}u}{u^2 + 1} = \frac{1}{3}\arctan u \big]_0^{\infty}= \frac{\pi}{6}$ via $u = x^3$.

So all in all, we get $$\int_0^{\infty} \frac{x^2+1}{x^6 +1 } \, \mathrm{d}x = \frac{\pi}{6} + \frac{\pi}{6\sin \frac{\pi}{6}} = \frac{\pi}{6} + \frac{\pi}{3} = \frac{\pi}{2}$$

In the original question the given limits were 0 & infinty

You really should have mentioned that. There's a **huge** difference between definite integrals and indefinite integrals.

I was trying the first method.

Hi - which STEP paper, year and question number is this?

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