06/10/2017 5.

Trapezoidal Rule

The Trapezoidal Rule

We saw the basic idea in our first attempt at solving the area under the arches problem earlier.

Instead of using rectangles as we did in the arches problem, we'll use trapezoids(trapeziums) and we'll find that it gives a better
approximation to the area.

y1 y2 y3 y4 y5
y6
y0
Δx Δx Δx Δx Δx Δx
Area under curve using trapezoidal Rule

Recall that we write "Δx" to mean "a small change in x".

Now, the area of a trapezoid (trapezium) is given by:

h
Area = (p + q )
2

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So the approximate area under the curve is found by adding the area of the trapezoids. (Our trapezoids are rotated 90° so that their
new base is actually the height. So h = Δx.)
1 1 1
Area ≈ (y 0 + y 1 )Δx+ (y 1 + y 2 )Δx+ (y 2 + y 3 )Δx + …
2 2 2
We can simplify this to give us the Trapezoidal Rule, for n trapezoids:

y0 yn
Area ≈ Δx( + y1 + y2 + y3 + … + )
2 2

To find Δx for the area from x = a to x = b, we use:

b−a
Δx =
n
and we also need

y 0 = f (a)

y 1 = f (a + Δx)

y 2 = f (a + 2Δx)

y n = f (b)

Note

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We get a better approximation if we take more trapezoids [up to a limit!].

The more trapezoids we take, Δx will tend to 0, that is, Δx → 0.
We can write (if the curve is above the x-axis only between x = a and x = b):
b
Area = ∫ f (x) dx
a
y0 yn
≈ Δx( + y1 + … + )
2 2
Exercise
Using n = 5, approximate the integral:
1
∫ x2 + 1 dx
0

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