We saw in the last video that the area under a curve is a limit of
a sum. In general, such a limit is called a definite integral.
Here is the formal definition.
If f is a function defined on a≤x≤b, we divide the interval [a,b] into n subintervals of equal
width: Δx=b−an. Let xi∗ be any sample
point in the ith interval. Then the definite integral of f
from a to b is
∫baf(x)dx=limn→∞n∑i=1f(xi∗)Δx
provided that limit exists and gives the same value for all
possible choices for xi∗. If it does exist, we say that f is
integrable on [a,b].
If
f(x)≥0 for all x in [a,b], then ∫baf(x)dx represents the
area under the curve y=f(x) between x=a and x=b. But integrals are not just areas, and make sense even when f(x) isn't positive.