What is the area of the region enclosed by the graph of the equation
Pick one
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
Without loss of generality (WLOG) note that if a point in the first quadrant satisfies the equation, so do its corresponding points in the other three quadrants. Therefore, we can assume that , which implies that and , and multiply by at the end.
We can rearrange the equation to get , which describes a circle with center and radius It's clear we now want to find the union of four equal areas.
[asy]draw((0,-1.5)--(0,1.5),EndArrow);draw((-1.5,0)--(1.5,0),EndArrow);draw((0,1)--(1,0)--(0,-1)--(-1,0)--cycle,dotted); for(int i=0;i<4;++i){draw(rotate(i*90,(0,0))*arc((1/2,1/2),sqrt(1/2),-45,135));dot(rotate(i*90,(0,0))*(1/2,1/2));}[/asy]
There are several ways to find the area, but note that if you connect to its other three respective points in the other three quadrants, you get a square of area , along with four half-circles of diameter , for a total area of which is .
Solution 2
Consider the case when , .
Notice the circle intersect the axes at points and . Find the area of this circle in the first quadrant. The area is made of a semi-circle with radius of and a triangle:
[asy]draw((0,-1.5)--(0,1.5),EndArrow);draw((-1.5,0)--(1.5,0),EndArrow);draw((0,1)--(1,0)--(0,-1)--(-1,0)--cycle,dotted);draw(arc((1/2,1/2),sqrt(2)/2,135, 315),dotted);for(int i=0;i<4;++i){draw(rotate(i*90,(0,0))*arc((1/2,1/2),sqrt(2)/2,-45,135)); dot(rotate(i*90,(0,0))*(1/2,1/2));}[/asy]
Because of symmetry, the area is the same in all four quadrants.
The answer is