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A line integral (sometimes called a path integral) is an integral where the function to be integrated is evaluated along a curve. [42] Various different line integrals are in use. In the case of a closed curve it is also called a contour integral. The function to be integrated may be a scalar field or a vector field.
In calculus, the trapezoidal rule (also known as the trapezoid rule or trapezium rule) [a] is a technique for numerical integration, i.e., approximating the definite integral: (). The trapezoidal rule works by approximating the region under the graph of the function f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} as a trapezoid and calculating its area.
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.
That is, the derivative of the area function A(x) exists and is equal to the original function f(x), so the area function is an antiderivative of the original function. Thus, the derivative of the integral of a function (the area) is the original function, so that derivative and integral are inverse operations which reverse each other. This is ...
The integral as the area of a region under a curve. A sequence of Riemann sums over a regular partition of an interval. The number on top is the total area of the rectangles, which converges to the integral of the function. The partition does not need to be regular, as shown here.
For a line integral over a scalar field, the integral can be constructed from a Riemann sum using the above definitions of f, C and a parametrization r of C. This can be done by partitioning the interval [a, b] into n sub-intervals [t i−1, t i] of length Δt = (b − a)/n, then r(t i) denotes some point, call it a sample point, on the curve C.
An illustration of Monte Carlo integration. In this example, the domain D is the inner circle and the domain E is the square. Because the square's area (4) can be easily calculated, the area of the circle (π*1.0 2) can be estimated by the ratio (0.8) of the points inside the circle (40) to the total number of points (50), yielding an approximation for the circle's area of 4*0.8 = 3.2 ≈ π.
The definite integral inputs a function and outputs a number, which gives the algebraic sum of areas between the graph of the input and the x-axis. The technical definition of the definite integral involves the limit of a sum of areas of rectangles, called a Riemann sum. [49]: 282 A motivating example is the distance traveled in a given time.