UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DEL ESTADO DE HIDALGO

ESCUELA SUPERIOR DE CD. SAHAGÚN

PROGRAMA EDUCATIVO: LICENCIATURA EN INGENIERÍA MECÁNICA

ASIGNATURA: CALCULO VECTORIAL

Riemann sum of 2 variable function

PROFESOR@: ING. BARRERA G. FRANCISCO J.

ALUMNO(S):

SÁNCHEZ SAAVEDRA LUIS GERARDO

ZALETA VIVANCO

SEMESTRE: 4
Integration in Two Variablesby Riemann Sums

Suppose we have a rectangular region of a city that is one mile by 2 miles and we want
to know the total population of this region from the population density. One way to do
this is to break the region into blocks, let's say 0.2 miles by 0.4 miles, and look at the
population density in each block.

The following table shows this, where the density is measured

in .

y / x 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

0.4 5 6 10 8 8

0.8 6 8 12 8 7

1.2 4 8 10 9 7

1.6 3 5 7 6 5

2.0 2 3 4 3 4

To get the total population in one block, we simply multiply the density by the area of

the block, where . Adding the population of all the

blocks then gives us the total population. We find that

Note that this is just an estimate of the number of people. We've assumed that over a
block, the population density is constant and only varies from block to block. This is
usually not the case. To get a better estimate, we'd have to break the region up into more
blocks (that are smaller) and repeat the process.

Basically, we've taken a function of two variables f(x,y) (in this case f gives the
population density at the point (x,y) ) and integrated it over the region. We did this using
a Riemann sum. Here's a slightly more detailed, but abstract, picture of what we're
doing.

Let f(x,y) be defined on a rectangular region, R, which is given by

. Break this region into small, but equally spaced blocks measuring a constant in
the x direction and in the y direction.

The area of each block is a small piece of the total area of R: . To get the
Riemann sum for the integral of f over R, we evaluate f at a point in each of the blocks,
multiply this by , and add this to the result of all the other blocks. To make it easy,
we'll evaluate f at the lower left corner of each block. The Riemann sum can then be
written as

This sum is a rough estimate of the definite double integral of f over R which is written
Remember, this is only an estimate because we are assuming that f is constant over each
of the blocks. To be accurate, we should take the limit as the blocks get smaller and
smaller (as their number goes to infinity). Thus,