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Integration, the process of computing an integral, is one of the two fundamental operations of calculus, [a] the other being differentiation. Integration was initially used to solve problems in mathematics and physics, such as finding the area under a curve, or determining displacement from velocity. Usage of integration expanded to a wide ...
Integration is the basic operation in integral calculus.While differentiation has straightforward rules by which the derivative of a complicated function can be found by differentiating its simpler component functions, integration does not, so tables of known integrals are often useful.
Integration by parts is often used in harmonic analysis, particularly Fourier analysis, to show that quickly oscillating integrals with sufficiently smooth integrands decay quickly. The most common example of this is its use in showing that the decay of function's Fourier transform depends on the smoothness of that function, as described below.
For example, one method of solving a boundary value problem is by converting the differential equation with its boundary conditions into an integral equation and solving the integral equation. [1] In addition, because one can convert between the two, differential equations in physics such as Maxwell's equations often have an analog integral and ...
In mathematics, the definite integral ∫ a b f ( x ) d x {\displaystyle \int _{a}^{b}f(x)\,dx} is the area of the region in the xy -plane bounded by the graph of f , the x -axis, and the lines x = a and x = b , such that area above the x -axis adds to the total, and that below the x -axis subtracts from the total.
The term "numerical integration" first appears in 1915 in the publication A Course in Interpolation and Numeric Integration for the Mathematical Laboratory by David Gibb. [2] "Quadrature" is a historical mathematical term that means calculating area. Quadrature problems have served as one of the main sources of mathematical analysis.
The limits of integration are often not easily interchangeable (without normality or with complex formulae to integrate). One makes a change of variables to rewrite the integral in a more "comfortable" region, which can be described in simpler formulae. To do so, the function must be adapted to the new coordinates. Example 1a.
In the mathematical field of complex analysis, contour integration is a method of evaluating certain integrals along paths in the complex plane. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Contour integration is closely related to the calculus of residues , [ 4 ] a method of complex analysis .