The Trapezium rule reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Trapezium rule

In mathematics, the trapezium rule or trapezoid rule is a way to approximate a definite integral. The trapezium rule works by breaking the graph into trapeziums, and then calculating the area of each of them.

So the integral below can be approximated as shown

The trapezium rule is one of a family of formulas for numerical integration called Newton-Cotes formulas. Simpson's rule is another, generally more accurate, member of the same family.

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