I am working on an integral and I solved it and got to the red box on the figure.
What I am trying to understand is how they simplified the logarithm function in the red box to the green box.
How does the simplification of the absolute value logarithm work
integrationlogarithms
Best Answer
Use logarithm properties: \begin{align} \frac{\ln\, \bigl\lvert 2y+\tfrac12 \bigl\rvert}{2} &= \frac{\ln\, \Bigl\lvert \bigl( 2y+\tfrac12 \bigr) \cdot 2 \cdot \tfrac12 \Bigl\rvert}{2} + C_1 \\ &= \frac{\ln\, \Bigl\lvert \bigl( 4y+1 \bigr) \cdot \tfrac12 \Bigl\rvert}{2} + C_1 \\ &= \frac{\ln\, \Bigl( \bigl\lvert 4y+1 \bigr\rvert \cdot \bigl\lvert \tfrac12 \bigl\rvert \Bigr)}{2} + C_1 \\ &= \frac{\ln\, \bigl\lvert 4y+1 \bigr\rvert + \ln\, \bigl\lvert \tfrac12 \bigl\rvert}{2} + C_1 \\ &= \frac{\ln\, \bigl\lvert 4y+1 \bigr\rvert}{2} + \frac{\ln\, \bigl\lvert \tfrac12 \bigl\rvert}{2} + C_1 \\ &= \frac{\ln\, \bigl\lvert 4y+1 \bigr\rvert}{2} + C_2, \end{align} where $$ C_2 = \frac{\ln\, \bigl\lvert \tfrac12 \bigl\rvert}{2} + C_1 = C_1 - \tfrac12 \ln 2 $$ Since the constant of integration is arbitrary for an indefinite integral, either one of these constants could be called $C$. However, it's quite misleading to call them both $C$ since they are explicitly different.