Integrals

5 Md Abdur Rahman
York University

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

5.1 The Area and Distance Problems

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

The Area Problem

3
The Area Problem (1 of 17)
We begin by attempting to solve the area problem: Find the area of the region
S that lies under the curve y = f(x) from a to b.

This means that S, illustrated in Figure 1, is bounded by the graph of a

continuous function f [where f(x) ≥ 0], the vertical lines x = a and x = b, and the
x-axis.

S = {( x, y ) | a  x  b, 0  y  f ( x )}
Figure 1
4
The Area Problem (2 of 17)
For a rectangle, the area is defined as the product of the length and the width.
The area of a triangle is half the base times the height.

The area of a polygon is found by dividing it into triangles (as in Figure 2) and
adding the areas of the triangles.

Figure 2

5
The Area Problem (3 of 17)
It isn’t so easy, however, to find the area of a region with curved sides. We all
have an intuitive idea of what the area of a region is. But part of the area
problem is to make this intuitive idea precise by giving an exact definition of
area.

We know that in defining a tangent we first approximated the slope of the

tangent line by slopes of secant lines and then we took the limit of these
approximations.

We first approximate the region S by rectangles and then we take the limit of
the sum of the areas of the approximating rectangles as we increase the
number of rectangles.

6
Example 1
Use rectangles to estimate the area under the parabola y = x 2 from 0 to 1
(the parabolic region S illustrated in Figure 3).

Figure 3

7
Example 1 – Solution (1 of 8)
We first notice that the area of S must be somewhere between 0 and 1
because S is contained in a square with side length 1, but we can certainly do
better than that.
Suppose we divide S into four strips S1, S2, S3, and S4 by drawing the
1 1 3
vertical lines x = , x = , and x = as in Figure 4(a).
4 2 4

Figure 4(a)
8
 Example 1 – Solution (2 of 8)
We can approximate each strip by a rectangle that has the same base as the strip
and whose height is the same as the right edge of the strip [see Figure 4(b)].

In other words, the heights of these

rectangles are the values of the function
f ( x ) = x 2 at the right endpoints of the
subintervals 0, 41  ,  41 , 21  ,  21 , 34  , and  34 , 1 .

Each rectangle has width 1 and the heights

4
are ( ) ( ) ( )
1 2
4
, 1 2
2
, 3 2
4
, and 12. Figure 4(b)

9
Example 1 – Solution (3 of 8)
If we let R4 be the sum of the areas of these approximating rectangles, we get
2 2 2
1  1 1  1 1 3 1
R4 =    +    +    +  12
4 4 4 2 4 4 4
15
=
32
= 0.46875

From Figure 4(b) we see that the area A of S is less than R4, so

A  0.46875

10
Example 1 – Solution (4 of 8)
Instead of using the rectangles in Figure 4(b) we could use the smaller
rectangles in Figure 5 whose heights are the values of f at the left endpoints of
the subintervals. (The leftmost rectangle has collapsed because its height is 0.)

Figure 4(b) Figure 5

11
Example 1 – Solution (5 of 8)
The sum of the areas of these approximating rectangles is
2 2 2
1 1  1 1  1 1 3
L4 =  02 +    +    +   
4 4 4 4 2 4 4
7
=
32
= 0.21875

We see that the area of S is larger than L4, so we have lower and upper
estimates for A:
0.21875  A  0.46875

We can repeat this procedure with a larger number of strips.

12
Example 1 – Solution (6 of 8)
Figure 6 shows what happens when we divide the region S into eight strips of
equal width.

(a) Using left endpoints (b) Using right endpoints

Approximating S with eight rectangles

Figure 6

13
Example 1 – Solution (7 of 8)
By computing the sum of the areas of the smaller rectangles (L8) and the sum
of the areas of the larger rectangles (R8), we obtain better lower and upper
estimates for A:
0.2734375  A  0.3984375

So one possible answer to the question is to say that the true area of S lies
somewhere between 0.2734375 and 0.3984375.

We could obtain better estimates by increasing the number of strips.

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Example 1 – Solution (8 of 8)
The table at the right shows the results of n Ln Rn
similar calculations (with a computer)
10 0.2850000 0.3850000
using n rectangles whose heights are
found with left endpoints (Ln) or right 20 0.3087500 0.3587500
endpoints (Rn). 30 0.3168519 0.3501852
50 0.3234000 0.3434000
100 0.3283500 0.3383500
1000 0.3328335 0.3338335

In particular, we see by using 50 strips that the area lies between 0.3234 and
0.3434. With 1000 strips we narrow it down even more: A lies between
0.3328335 and 0.3338335.
A good estimate is obtained by averaging these numbers: A ≈ 0.3333335.
15
The Area Problem (4 of 17)
From Figures 8 and 9 it appears that as n increases, both Ln and Rn become
better and better approximations to the area of S.

Right endpoints produce upper sums because f ( x ) = x 2 is increasing.

Figure 8

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The Area Problem (5 of 17)

Left endpoints produce lower sums because f ( x ) = x 2 is increasing.

Figure 9

Therefore we define the area A to be the limit of the sums of the areas of the
approximating rectangles, that is,
1
A = lim Rn = lim Ln =
n → n → 3
17
 The Area Problem (6 of 17)
We start by subdividing S into n strips S1, S2, …, Sn of equal width as in Figure 10.

Figure 10

The width of the interval [a, b] is b − a, so the width of each of the n strips is
b−a
x =
n
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The Area Problem (7 of 17)
These strips divide the interval [a, b] into n subintervals
[ x0 , x1 ,  x1, x2 ,  x2, x3 , . . . ,  xn –1, xn ]

where x0 = a and xn = b.

The right endpoints of the subintervals are

x1 = a + x,
x 2 = a + 2 x ,
x 3 = a + 3 x ,

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The Area Problem (8 of 17)
Let’s approximate the ith strip Si by a rectangle with width Δx and height f (xi),
which is the value of f at the right endpoint (see Figure 11).

Figure 11

Then the area of the ith rectangle is f(xi) Δx. What we think of intuitively as the
area of S is approximated by the sum of the areas of these rectangles, which is
Rn = f ( x1 ) x + f ( x2 ) x + + f ( xn ) x

20
The Area Problem (9 of 17)
Figure 12 shows this approximation for n = 2, 4, 8, and 12. Notice that this
approximation appears to become better and better as the number of strips
increases, that is, as n → ∞.

Figure 12

21
The Area Problem (10 of 17)
Therefore we define the area A of the region S in the following way.

2 Definition The area A of the region S that lies under the graph of the
continuous function f is the limit of the sum of the areas of approximating
rectangles:
A = lim Rn = lim f ( x1 ) x + f ( x2 ) x + + f ( xn ) x 
n → n →

It can be proved that the limit in Definition 2 always exists, since we are
assuming that f is continuous. It can also be shown that we get the same value
if we use left endpoints:
3 A = lim Ln = lim f ( x0 ) x + f ( x1 ) x + + f ( xn −1 ) x 
n → n →

22
The Area Problem (11 of 17)
In fact, instead of using left endpoints or right endpoints, we could take the
height of the ith rectangle to be the value of f at any number xi in the ith
subinterval [xi – 1, xi ]. We call the numbers x1, x2, . . . , xn the sample points.

Figure 13 shows approximating rectangles

when the sample points are not chosen to
be endpoints.

Figure 13
So a more general expression for the area of S is
4
n → 
( ) ( )
A = lim f x1 x + f x2 x + ( )
+ f xn x 

23
The Area Problem (12 of 17)
Note:
To approximate the area under the graph of f we can form lower sums (or
upper sums) by choosing the sample points xi so that f(xi) is the minimum
(or maximum) value of f on the ith subinterval. (See Figure 14)

Figure 14

24
The Area Problem (13 of 17)
It can be shown that an equivalent definition of area is the following: A is the
unique number that is smaller than all the upper sums and bigger than all the
lower sums.

We saw in Example 1, for instance, that the area ( A = 31 ) is trapped between

all the left approximating sums Ln and all the right approximating sums Rn.

The function in the example, f ( x ) = x 2 , happens to be increasing on [0, 1]

and so the lower sums arise from left endpoints and the upper sums from right
endpoints.

25
The Area Problem (14 of 17)
See Figures 8 and 9.

Right endpoints produce upper sums because f ( x ) = x 2 is increasing.

Figure 8

26
The Area Problem (15 of 17)

Left endpoints produce lower sums because f ( x ) = x 2 is increasing

Figure 9

27
The Area Problem (16 of 17)
We often use sigma notation to write sums with many terms more compactly.
For instance,
n
 f ( xi ) x = f ( x1 ) x + f ( x2 ) x + + f ( xn ) x
i =1

So the expressions for area in Equations 2, 3, and 4 can be written as follows:

n
A = lim  f ( xi ) x
n →
i =1

n
A = lim  f ( xi −1 ) x
n →
i =1

28
The Area Problem (17 of 17)

( )
n
A = lim  f xi x
n →
i =1

29