(This notes closely follows some notes from lecturer Owen Biesel from the Leiden University)

1 Antiderivatives and Integrals

KEY IDEA:
Until know, we have deal with functions and their properties (limits, domain,
continuity, slope, derivatives...), now let’s assume that we start with a function
f (x) and instead of asking “What is the derivative of f (x)?”, we ask “What is
the function whose derivative is f (x)?”. A function whose derivative is f (x) is
called an antiderivative of f (x). Here are some examples.

Example 1. If f (x) = 2x, what is an antiderivative of f ? The derivative of x2 with respect

to x is 2x, so an antiderivative of f is the function g defined by g(x) = x2 .

Example 2. What is an antiderivative of the function f defined by f (x) = 2x − 5? We

d
calculated earlier that dx (x2 − 5x) = 2x − 5, so the function g defined by g(x) = x2 − 5x is
an antiderivative of f .

Just like for derivatives, there’s a simple way to find an antiderivative of any polynomial;
you just have to know what an antiderivative is for each power xn that appears in the
polynomial. Here are the first few:
d
• An antiderivative of 1 is x because dx
(x) = 1.

• An antiderivative of x is 21 x2 because d 1 2
( x)
dx 2
= 12 (2x) = x.

• An antiderivative of x2 is 13 x3 because d 1 3
( x)
dx 3
= 31 (3x2 ) = x2 .

And the general pattern is this:

1
• An antiderivative of xn is xn+1 because
n+1
( )
d 1 n+1 1
x = ((n + 1)xn ) = xn .
dx n + 1 n+1

So the way to find an antiderivative of any polynomial is to replace each power xn with
1
n+1
xn+1 . One subtle case is that a constant term, like 3, can be written as 3x0 , so an
antiderivative for it is 3( 11 x1 ) = 3x.

Example 3. Let f (x) = 2x − x2 . What is an antiderivative for f ? One answer is the

function g defined by ( ) ( )
1 2 1 3
g(x) = 2 x − x = x2 − x3 /3.
2 3
This is indeed an antiderivative for f , because g ′ (x) = (2x) − (3x2 )/3 = 2x − x2 = f (x), so
g′ = f .

1
Practice Problem 1. Let h be the function defined by h(x) = 8x − 10x4 + 2. What is an
antiderivative of h?

In fact, you can use the quotient rule to prove that

d −n
(x ) = −nx−n−1 ,
dx
so the power rule works just as well for negative powers. That means we can find an
antiderivative for just about any power of x, positive or negative:
1
An antiderivative of xn is xn+1 for any integer n ̸= −1.
n+1
Next time, we’ll find out what an antiderivative for x−1 is. For the rest of today, we’ll address
two other questions, one little and one big:

• Why do we keep saying “an antiderivative” and not “the antiderivative” of a function?

• Why should you care about antiderivatives anyway? You’ve probably never looked at
a function and thought “I wonder what it’s the derivative of.”

For the first question: We say an antiderivative because there’s never just one antideriva-
tive for a function. Two functions have the same derivative when one is a constant plus the
other:

g(x)

f (x)

The functions f and g have the same slope at every value of x, so f ′ (x) = g ′ (x). These
functions differ by a constant: g(x) = f (x) + c for some real number c.

So if you have one antiderivative, you can get another by adding any constant to it: g(x) =
x2 − x3 /3 and h(x) = x2 − x3 /3 + 18 are each an antiderivative for f (x) = 2x − x2 , because
g ′ and h′ are both equal to f .

2
2 Integrals
As for why you should care about antiderivatives, here’s how they’re useful. The main fact
about antiderivatives is this one, called the fundamental theorem of calculus.
Theorem 2.1. Suppose f is a function, and we want to find the area of the region between the
graph of f (x) and the x-axis, between two bounds x = a and x = b. If g is any antiderivative
of f , this area is g(b) − g(a).
y

y = f (x)

area g(b) − g(a)

x
a x-axis b

Example 4. What is the area of this triangle?

y

x
0 1 2 3 4

The diagonal line forming the hypoteneuse of the triangle has slope 2/3 (it rises 2 units as
it runs 3 units), so it is the graph of the function f (x) = 2x/3. We are looking for the area
between y = f (x) and the x-axis between x = 0 and x = 3, so we can use the fundamental
theorem of calculus to find the answer once we find an antiderivative for f . Since f is a
polynomial, we just use the rule for polynomials to find an antiderivative g:
2
f (x) = x
3( )
2 1 2 1
g(x) = x = x2 .
3 2 3

So the area of the triangle is g(3) − g(0) = 13 (3)2 − 13 (0)2 = 9/3 = 3. Of course, there is a
more basic way to find the area of a triangle: since this triangle has base 3 and height 2, its
area is 12 (3)(2) = 3.

3
 The next example is one you probably couldn’t do without calculus, but it’s no harder
than the last:
Example 5. What is the hump-shaped area below this parabola and above the x-axis?
y
y = 2x − x2
1

x
0 1 2

Let f (x) = 2x − x2 ; back in Example 3 we found that an antiderivative for f is the function
g defined by g(x) = x2 − x3 /3. The area we want is the area between y = f (x) and the
x-axis, and between x = 0 and x = 2, so the fundamental theorem of calculus tells us that
this area is g(2) − g(0) = ((2)2 − (2)3 /3) − ((0)2 − (0)3 /3) = 4 − 8/3 − 0 = 4/3. That makes
sense: the hump is a little bigger than a triangle with height 1 and base 2, which would have
area 1, and 4/3 is a little bigger than 1.
The area between the graph of a function f and the x-axis, and between x = a and x = b,
is called an integral, and is written like this:
∫ b
f (x) dx,
a

read “the integral from a to b of f of x dee x.” Like the d/dx notation,
∫ this integral notation
was also invented by Leibniz. And just like that notation, the and the dx don’t have any
independent meaning; they’re like left and right parentheses.
So the fundamental theorem of calculus can be stated this way: If g is an antiderivative
of f , then
∫ b
f (x) dx = g(b) − g(a).
a
∫3
Practice Problem 2. Find the value of this integral: 1
(x3 − x) dx. Hint: Start by finding
an antiderivative for the function f (x) = x3 − x.
Because of this, there’s similar notation used to say that g is an antiderivative of f . It
looks like this: ∫
f (x) dx = g(x) + C.

The + C is read “plus a constant.” This is supposed to remind you that there’s no one
antiderivative of a function; you can always add a constant to get another. An integral like
this, where you get an antiderivative plus a constant, is called an indefinite integral. An
integral where you subtract two values of a single antiderivative to get a number is called a
definite integral. Figuring out what an indefinite or definite integral is (usually by finding

4
an antiderivative) is called integrating, and the expression inside the integral is called the
integrand. ∫b
There’s a subtlety about what a f (x) dx means when f (x) is sometimes negative. If f
spends some of its time above the yx-axis and some of its time below the x-axis, then its
= f (x)
integral will be (area above the x-axis) − (area below the x-axis):
y
∫b
a
f (x) dx

+ this area
b
x
a x-axis
− this area

You can think of the integral as telling you how much extra dirt you need if you want to
make a flat piece of ground look like the shape of the function. If the function is negative in
places, you actually need to get rid of dirt, and that can lessen the amount of dirt you need
to build up other places.
This has to be the way the definition works if we want to calculate areas with antideriva-
tives; here is an example:
Example 6. Let’s calculate the integral of x2 − 4x + 3 from x = 0 to x = 4:
∫ 4
x2 − 4x + 3 dx = ?
0
y

2 y = x2 − 4x + 3

+ +

0 x
0 1 2 3 4
−

−1

5
The first step is to find an antiderivative for x2 − 4x + 3. Using our power rule for antideriva-
tives, we get an antiderivative ( 13 x3 ) − 4( 12 x2 ) + 3(x) = 13 x3 − 2x2 + 3x. Then the integral is
the value of the antiderivative at the right end minus its value at the left end:
( ) ( )
1 3 1 3 4
(4) − 2(4) + 3(4) −
2
(0) − 2(0) + 3(0) = .
2
3 3 3
The two triangle-like shapes above the x-axis have an area totalling almost 3 (in fact, it’s
8/3), but part of that is canceled by area below the x-axis (so we get 8/3 − 4/3 = 4/3).
∫ 2
x
Practice Problem 3. What is the integral dx? (If the answer confuses you, try
−2 3
drawing a picture.)
Finally, if you’re interested, here’s why the fundamental theorem of calculus is true:
Theorem 2.2. Let ∫f be a function, and let a be a real number. For each number b, define
b
F (b) as the integral a f (x) dx. Then the derivative of F (b) with respect to b is f (b).
Proof. One way of saying that F ′ (b) = f (b) is to say that if h is very small, then
F (b + h) ≈ F (b) + f (b)h.
Here is a picture comparing F (b) and F (b + h):
y

y = f (x)

area F (b)

h
x
a b

The area of the whole shape above is F (b + h), so the difference between F (b + h) and F (b)
is the area of the strip on the right with width h. The smaller h is, the more nearly this
strip will be a rectangle with width h and height f (b), hence area f (b)h. Therefore
F (b + h) ≈ F (b) + f (b)h
F (b + h) − F (b) ≈ f (b)h
F (b + h) − F (b)
≈ f (b)
h
F (b + h) − F (b)
lim = f (b)
h→0 h
F ′ (b) = f (b).
Therefore the function F is an antiderivative of f .

6
 ∫b
Now let’s suppose we want to compute the integral a f (x) dx = F (b). If we find any
antiderivative g of f , then g and F will differ by a constant:
g(x) = F (x) + c for some number c.
We can find out what that constant is, because we know that F (a) = 0: there’s no area
under the function between x = a and x = a—that’s just a line!
g(a) = F (a) + c = c.
Therefore, for any value of x, the constant by which F (x) and g(x) differ is g(a):
g(x) = F (x) + g(a).
In particular, when x = b we get
g(b) = F (b) + g(a),
∫b
So a
f (x) dx = F (b) = g(b) − g(a).

3 Answers to Practice Problems

Answer to Practice Problem 1. To find a function g whose derivative is a polynomial h, first
write h as a sum of multiples of powers of x. In our case, we get
h(x) = 8(x1 ) − 10(x4 ) + 2(x0 ).
1
Then replace each power xn with n+1
xn+1 ,
and let g(x) be the result:
( ) ( ) ( )
1 2 1 5 1 1
g(x) = 8 x − 10 x +2 x
2 5 1
= 4x2 − 2x5 + 2x.

We can check that the derivative of g gives us back the h we started with:

g ′ (x) = 4(2x) − 2(5x4 ) + 2(1)

= 8x − 10x4 + 2 = h(x).
∫3
Answer to Practice Problem 2. To calculate the integral 1 (x3 − x) dx, we first need to find
an antiderivative for the function f (x) = x3 − x; for example, the function g(x) = 41 x4 − 12 x2
works. Then the value of the integral is
∫ 3
(x3 − x) dx = g(3) − g(1)
1
( ) ( )
1 4 1 2 1 4 1 2
= (3) − (3) − (1) − (1)
4 2 4 2
( ) ( )
81 9 1 1
= − − −
4 2 4 2
80 8
= − = 20 − 4 = 16.
4 2
7
Answer to Practice Problem 3. An antiderivative for x/3 is x2 /6, so we get
(2)2 (−2)2 4 4
− = − = 0.
6 6 6 6
If this surprises you, here’s a picture:
y

1 y = x/3
0 x
−2 −1 0 1 2
−1

This shape has equal amounts of area above and below the x-axis, so all the area cancels
out and the integral is 0.

Exercises
1. Find the following antiderivatives:
∫
1
(a) (x2 + 3x3 − )dx
x
∫ √
x 1 − x2 dx
4
(b)
∫
(c) sin (5x)ecos5x dx
∫
(d) sin(2x − 3)dx
∫
(e) x2 (3x3 + 14)3 dx
∫
(f) xcosxdx
∫
(g) x2 sin xdx
∫
(h) xlnxdx

2. Calculate the following definite integrals:

∫ π
(a) xcosxdx
∫ π
0

(b) x2 sin xdx

0

8
 ∫ 4
(c) xlnxdx
2
∫ 2
(d) xex dx
0
∫ 5
3. Find f (x)dx fo the following funcions:
0
{
x2 if x < 3
(a) f (x) =
9 if x ≥ 3
{ 1
x2 if x < 4
(b) f (x) =
x2 − 12 if x ≥ 4
{
0 if x < 1
(c) f (x) =
x ln x if x ≥ 1
4. The profit of a firm has a temporal continuous behaviour acording to the following
function: B(t) = t2 sin t + 10. Find:

(a) The cumulated profit during the period [0,7]

(b) The average profit obtained during the same period.

5. Find the surface limited between the curve y = x2 and the line y = x

6. We know that the marginal cost to build a meter of a motorway, C(x) follows the
following function (thousand of euros per meter).

dT C
C(x) = = 10 + t + 0.2t2
dx
where x is the length of the motorway in meters and T C is the total cost to build the
whole motorway. Find:

(a) The cost for building the meter 50th of the motorway
(b) The cost for building between meter 40th and 50th
(c) The total cost of a 50 meters motorway
(d) The average cost per meter of a 50 meters motorway

7. The market of personal computers has the following offer and demand functions:

Qd = 48 − 3p2

Qs = 5p2 − 20
where p is the price of the personal computers, Qd and Qs are the quantities demanded
and offered respectively. Find the consumer surpluss