What is an integral?

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I’m in CalcII now and for the life of me cannot wrap my head around integrals. Now we are using things like u-Substitution methods and solving the areas between 2 curves. I can understand how the equations work, but not why because I still cannot picture what an integral is or why it’s important.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Most abstractly? The integral is the anti-derivative. That’s literally it, algebraically, you just are doing the inverse of the derivative.

Geometrically, it can have a lot of interpretations, but the most common one for single-variable functions is that it’s the (signed) cumulative area between the x axis and the function curve.

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