The Length of a Curve

We can find an approximate value for the length of a curve between twovaluesand by approximating the curve by a series of line segments and adding up the length of each line segment. For the curve give above, the length of the line segmentso the length of the curve is approximatelyifandWe can write this asand by lettingthe sum becomes an integral:

Example: The curve below isFind the length of the curve betweenand