376 Chapter 5 The Integral

5.1 Introduction to Integration—The Area Problem

We calculate the area of a rectangle by multiplying length by width. We find other
areas, such as the area of a trapezoid or of a triangle, by performing geometric
constructions to reduce the problem to the calculation of the area of a rectangle
(see Figure 1). If we wish to calculate the area of the region under the graph of a
function y 5 f (x), then there is no hope of dividing the region and reassembling it
into one rectangle (see Figure 2). Instead we attempt to divide the region into many
rectangles.

B B D

y
y ⫽ f(x)

A w C A C

B D B D

h h
x
E w F A E C a b

m Figure 1 Area (ΔABC) 5 12 area (EBDF) 5 12 hw m Figure 2

Figure 3 suggests the procedure that we will follow: The area of the shaded
region is approximated by the sum of the areas of the rectangles. Of course, there is
some inaccuracy: Notice that the rectangles do not quite fit. Parts of some of the
rectangles protrude from the region while other parts fall short. If we take a great
many rectangles, as in Figure 4, it appears that the sum total of all these errors is
quite small. We might hope that, as the number of rectangles becomes ever larger,
the total error tends to zero. If so, this procedure would tell us the area of region
R in Figure 2.

y y
y ⫽ f(x) y ⫽ f(x)

x x
a b a b

m Figure 3 m Figure 4