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Problem: I want to calculate the area of a circle of radius $r>0$.
One idea is to calculate area of $\frac{1}{4}$ of circle, so that the area is

$$4\int_{0}^{r} \sqrt{r^2 -x^2} dx$$ To solve this we use the substitution $$x = r\cos{t}$$ $$dx = -r\sin{t}dt$$ and the integral can easily be solved.

My question is the following. What if I want first to calculate area of semicircle and then just multiply by $2$? $$2\int_{-r}^{r} \sqrt{r^2 -x^2} dx$$ The substitution $x = r\cos{t}$ works even if $r\cos{t}$ is not injective on $ [-r,r]$?

josf
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