Summary
Rectangles, Trapezoids, and Simpson’s I just wrapped up a semester of calculus TA duties, and I thought it would be fun to revisit the problem of integration from a numerical standpoint. In other words, the goal of this article is to figure out how fast we can approximate the definite integral of a function $ f:\mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}$. Intuitively, a definite integral is a segment of the area between a curve $ f$ and the $ x$-axis, where we allow area to be negative when $ f(x) < 0$....