Antiderivatives and The Indefinite Integral

We wish to perform the opposite process to differentiation. This is called "antidifferentiation" and later, we
will call it "integration".

Example 1
If we know that

and we need to know the function this derivative came from, then we "undo" the differentiation process. (Think:
"What would I have to differentiate to get this result?")

ONE antiderivative of

There are infinitely many other antiderivatives which would also work, for example:

In general, we say

is the indefinite integral of

.
The number K is called the constant of integration.

Note: Most math text books use C for the constant of integration, but for questions involving electrical
engineering, we prefer to write "+K", since C is normally used for capacitance and it can get confusing.

Notation for the Indefinite Integral

We write:
and say in words:
"The integral of 3x2 with respect to x equals x3 + K."

The Integral Sign

The

sign is an elongated "S", standing for "sum". (In old German, and English, "s" was often written using this
elongated shape.) Later we will see that the integral is the sum of the areas of infinitesimally thin rectangles.

∑ is the symbol for "sum". It can be used for finite or infinite sums.

∫ is the symbol for the sum of an infinite number of infinitely small areas (or other variables).
This "long s" notation was introduced by Leibniz when he developed the concepts of integration.

Other Notation for Integrals

Note: Sometimes we write a capital letter to signify integration. For example, we write F(x) to mean the
integral of f(x). So we have:

Example 2
Find

Solution:
The antiderivative of x2 is 3x3, and the antiderivative of 5 is 5x, so we can write:

A. Integral of a Constant
(k and K are constants.)

The integral of a constant is that constant times x, plus a constant.

Example 3

Find

Solution:
Using our new rule, we can simply write:

Always check by differentiating your answer, and you should get back to what the question was asking you to
integrate.

B. Integral of a Power of x

(This is true as long as n≠−1)

For the integral of a power of x: add 1 to the power and divide by the new number.

Example 4:
Integrate

Solution:
We use our new rule, and obtain:
The Constant of Integration
Don't forget the "+ K" (or, alternatively, "+ C"). This constant of integration is vital in later applications of the
indefinite integral.

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Example 5:
Integrate

Solution:
∫8x6dx
8 is a constant, so it can go out the front:

Next, do the integration step by adding 1 to the index and dividing by the new number:

And of course, we must not forget the constant.

So the final answer is:

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Example 6:
Integrate

Solution:
This is already in differential form, so we can just add the integral signs:

On the left hand side, we simply have:

(We are integrating the constant 1 with respect to y.)

On the right hand side, we integrate each of the terms, one at a time:
So putting it all together, we have the solution:

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Example 7

Solution:

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Example 8

Answer:
Our first step in this question is to re-write the exponents so it is easier to integrate:

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Example 9

Solution:
Once again, we re-write the exponents in a more convenient form.

Notice the constant of integration, +K, in each of these examples.

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Example 10

A particular curve has its derivative given by

We are told that the curve passes through the point (2, 5). Find the equation of the curve.

Solution:
The first step for this problem is to integrate the expression (i.e. find the antiderivative). This will give us
the expression for y.

So we have

This represents a family of curves, and depends on the value of K for the y-intercept.
We must now find the value of K from the information given in the question.
Since the curve passes through (2,5), we substitute these values into

to give:

So K = 1

So, the required curve is

Here is the graph of the curve we found in example 10

Notice the curve passes through the point (2,5).

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Example 11
Consider this integration:

This is different to the other exercises above!

4 6
The expression we have to integrate contains (2x −5) , which is a function of a function, and we have
3
that x at the end. We cannot do this integration using the rules we have learned so far.
In this case, we have to do the reverse of the Chain Rule, which we met in the section on differentiation.
We introduce a new rule for integrating cases like these.

C. Power Formula for Integration

(This is true if n≠−1)

This requires a substitution step, where u(x) is some function of x.
Now back to the problem to see how to apply this formula.

Integrate:

Answer:
We use, as a starting point, the substitution
u=2x4−5.
Why? Because 2x4−5 is the expression in brackets in the question.

Now differentiating u gives: du=8x3dx

Our question has only one x3dx (not 8 of them) so we need to divide both sides by

(Now the right hand side is the same as what we have in the question, x3dx.)

We can now rewrite our question as:

(Notice I'm not mixing up x's and u's in any one expression here.)

Now we integrate with respect to u:

Finally, we express everything in terms of x, since that's the variable we started with:

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More substitution examples

Example 12
Integrate

Solution:
We use, as a starting point, u=x3−2.
Now du=3x2dx
This time, this is exactly what we have in the question, so there is no need to divide both sides.
We can now write:

Example 13
Find

using a substitution
Solution:
Put u=x2+9
Then du=2xdx
The question has just one xdx so we divide both sides by 2:

Now
The Area under a Curve
A building has parabolic archways and we need to supply glass to close in the archways. How much glass is
needed?

To answer this, we need to know the area under the curve.

We'll see how to do this in 2 ways on this page:
1. Using an approximation (finding areas of rectangles)
2. Using integration

Before integration was developed, mathematicians could only approximate the answer by dividing the space
into rectangles and adding the areas of those rectangles, something like this:

The height of each rectangle is found by calculating the function values, as shown for the typical case x = c,
where the rectangle height is f(c). We get a better result if we take more and more rectangles.
In the above diagram, we are approximating the area using inner rectangles (each rectangle is inside the
curve). We could also find the area using the outer rectangles.

[This method was known to the Ancient Greeks. See Archimedes and the area of a parabolic segment.]
See the Riemann Sums applet where you can interactively explore this concept.
Example 1: Approximation using rectangles
(a) Find the area under the curve y = 1 − x2 between x = 0.5 and x = 1, for n = 5, using the sum of areas of
rectangles method.

Solution:
The area we are trying to find is shaded in this graph:

Since n=5, the width of each rectangle will be:

We aim to find the sum of the areas of the following 5 rectangles:

Now the height of each rectangle is given by the function value for that particular x-value.

For example, since y=f(x)=1−x2, the first rectangle has height given by:
f(0.5) = 1 − (0.5)2 = 0.75
It has area given by:
Area1=0.75×0.1=0.075
The second rectangle has height:
f(0.6) = 1 − (0.6)2 = 0.64
The 5th rectangle has height
f(0.9) = 1 − (0.9)2 = 0.19
Adding the areas together gives us the following. (We are writing it using summation notation, which just
means the sum of the 5 rectangles. Also, we are adding the heights first then multiplying by the width, which is
the same for each rectangle.)

In the above answer, we are finding the area of the "outer" rectangles. To find a better approximation, we could
also find the area of the inner rectangles, and then average the 2 results. The graph for the inner rectangles is as
follows:

And this is the sum of the areas for the inner rectangles (the 5th one has height 0, so area 0):

The average of the 2 areas is given by:

A third way of doing this problem would be to find the mid-point rectangles. The diagram for this would be:

This time our area is

(The first one comes from f(0.55) = 1 − (0.55)2 = 0.6975).

This answer is slightly above the average of the outer and inner rectangles, and less work!

(b) Find the area under the curve given in part (a), but this time use n = 10, using the sum of areas of (upper)
rectangles method.

Since n = 10,

Here are the 10 rectangles we are using this time:

We take the outer rectangles and find the areas (10 of them) as follows:

Finding Areas using Definite Integration

There must be a better way than finding areas of rectangles! Integration was developed by Newton and Leibniz
to save all this "adding areas of rectangles" work.

General Case

The curve y = f(x), completely above x-axis. Shows a "typical" rectangle, Δx wide and y high.

[NOTE: The curve is completely ABOVE the x-axis].

When Δx becomes extremely small, the sum of the areas of the rectangles gets closer and closer to the area
under the curve. If it actually goes to 0, we get the exact area.

We use integration to evaluate the area we are looking for. We can show in general, the exact area under a
curve y = f(x) from \displaystyle{x}={a}x=a to \displaystyle{x}={b}x=b is given by the definite integral:

How do we evaluate this expression?

If F(x) is the integral of f(x), then

This means:
To evaluate a definite integral, follow these steps:
 integrate the given function (do not include the K)
 substitute the upper limit (b) into the integral
 substitute the lower limit (a) into the integral
 subtract the second value from the first value
 the answer will be a number
This forms part of The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.

Example 2: Evaluation of Definite Integral

Evaluate:

Solution:

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Returning to our arches problem above...
If the arch is 2 m wide at the bottom and is 3 m high,
(i) find the equation of the parabola
(ii) find the area under each arch using integration.

Solution:
(i) We place the parabola so that the left side of the arch passes through (0,0) and the right side will pass
through (2,0), since the arch is 2 m wide at the bottom. The vertex of the arch is at (1,3).

General form of a parabola: y=ax2+bx+c

At x=0, y=0 and on substituting, we get 0=0+0+c. So c=0.
At x=1, y=3 and on substituting, we get 3=a+b.
At y=0 and on substituting, we get 0=4a+2b.
This gives the simultaneous equations
a+b=3
2a+b=0
Subtracting the 1st line from the 2nd gives a=−3.
And so b=6.

So the required parabola is y=−3x2+6x, with x in metres.

The process of finding the equation is called modeling. It is a very important skill in science and engineering.
(ii) Now for the area:
Example 4
Find the (exact) area under the curve y = x2 + 1 between x = 0 and x = 4 and the x-axis.

Solution:
This is the area we need to find:

The area is given by: