Chapter 14
Intro to Integration and Approximating Area
IN THIS CHAPTER
Integrating — adding it all up
Approximating areas and sizing up sigma sums
Using the definite integral to get exact areas
Reconnoitering rectangles
Totaling up trapezoids
Applying Simpson’s rule: Calculus for Bart and Homer
Since you’re still reading this book, I presume that means you survived differentiation (Chapters 9 through 13). Now you begin the second major topic in calculus: integration. Just as two simple ideas lie at the heart of differentiation — rate (like miles per hour) and the steepness or slope of a curve — integration can also be understood in terms of two simple ideas: adding up small pieces of something and the area under a curve. In this chapter, I introduce you to these two fundamental concepts.
By the way, much of the material in this chapter and the first section of Chapter 15 is both more ...
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