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Introduction to Integrals |
Now that you’ve gained some familiarity with differentiation, it’s time to look at the reverse process, called integration. A math professor once said, “Differentiation is like navigating down the Mississippi. Integration is like navigating up the Mississippi and its tributaries. It’s the same river system, but a different process!” For most people, integration is more difficult than differentiation, and it’s easier to “get lost.” That professor knew what he was talking about! But with study, integration gets easier.
ADDING UP THE PIECES
Slope, found by differentiation, uses a vanishingly small change in x to produce a vanishingly small change in y. If you add an arbitrarily large number of these tiny changes, ...