<s>[INST] Solving $\int \frac{x^3}{(4x^2 + 9)^\frac{3}{2}} dx$ The integral I must solve is this:
$$\begin{equation} \int \frac{x^3 }{(4x^2 + 9)^\frac{3}{2}} dx \tag{1}\end{equation}$$
Now I know that I'm supposed to convert the denominator into some form of $\sqrt{a^2 + x^2}$ in order to apply the substitution $x = a \ tan \ \theta$. Now I can change the form of the denominator to become easy enough to substitute as follows:
$$\bigg (4 \bigg (\ \frac{9}{4}\ +x^2\bigg)\bigg) ^\frac{3}{2} $$
Which makes it clear that $x$ needs to be substituted as  $x = \frac{3}{2} \tan \theta $, and $dx = \frac{3}{2} \sec^2 \theta $
for later use. At this point I can represent $(1)$ in terms of my substituted trignometric function. The only problem comes with the denominator where I get stuck on the power. Here is how I went about solving it:
$$\bigg (4 \bigg (\ \frac{9}{4}\ +\left(\frac{3}{2} \tan \theta\right)^2 \bigg)\bigg) ^\frac{3}{2} $$
$$\bigg (4 \bigg (\ \frac{9}{4}\ +\frac{9}{4} \tan^2 \theta) \bigg)\bigg) ^\frac{3}{2} $$
$$\bigg (4 \frac{9}{4}\bigg (\ 1 + \tan^2 \theta) \bigg)\bigg) ^\frac{3}{2} $$
$$ 9^\frac{3}{2}\bigg( \ 1 + \tan^2 \theta \bigg) ^\frac{3}{2} $$
$$ 27\ ( \sec^2 \theta ) ^\frac{3}{2} $$
Now I have no idea how to evaluate this power of $sec$. The author says that it changes into $sec^3 \theta$ but I just can't fathom how that would go about. If what I understand is correct, the power it is raised to would be added to it's own making it $ \sec^\frac{7}{2} \theta$. My question is that how exactly is my reasoning wrong here?
 [/INST] Apparently I can evaluate integrals but not powers. To the ones who stumble upon this, when something is raised to a power, it is multiplied to that not added to it, which was the mistake that I was making. So for my problem above
$$(\sec^{2} \theta)^{\frac{3}{2}} = ((\sec \theta)^{2})^{\frac{3}{2}} = (\sec \theta)^{2 \times \frac{3}{2}} = \sec^3 \theta  $$
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