Area under the curve introduction

One method to find the area under a curve is by using the area of small rectangles inscribed
inside the curve.

Rectangle 1

Rectangle 2 =
Rectangle 3 =
Rectangle 4 =
The estimated area under the curve using inscribed rectangles is
1
4

25
64

9
16

49
64

1.97

Area under the curve introduction

Another method to find the area under a curve is by using the area of small rectangles
circumscribed outside the curve.

Rectangle 1 =
Rectangle 2 =
Rectangle 3 =
Rectangle 1

The estimated area under the curve using inscribed rectangles is

25
64

9
16

49
64

The area under the curve is somewhere between 1.97

2.72

2.72

Area under the curve introduction

The way to make these estimates better is to make more rectangles. If we make the limit of the
number of rectangles approach infinity we will get the actual area under the curve. This can be
calculated using the integral.
Find the area under the curve from a to b of f(x)
!#$# Area

,
-

This can be written as

The example we used is

between 1 and 2

We estimated the area under the curve is somewhere between 1.97

/0

2
=
1

2.72

2.33

Example: Find the area under the curve y = 3x2 + 5 between x = 0 and x = 3
y=

34
3/

/0

Find the area under the curve

1. y = 2x2 4 from x = 1 to x = 3

2. y = 7

2 1 from x = 1 to x = 2

5 3

5 3 6 70

5 0 9

12