CHAPTER 5 Antidifferentiation
Concepts and Skills
In this chapter, we review- indefinite integrals,
- formulas for antiderivatives of basic functions,
- and techniques for finding antiderivatives (including substitution).
For BC Calculus students, we review two important techniques of integration: - integration by parts,
- and integration by partial fractions.
A. ANTIDERIVATIVES
The antiderivative or indefinite integral of a function f (x) is a function F(x) whose derivative is f
(x). Since the derivative of a constant equals zero, the antiderivative of f (x) is not unique; that is, if
F(x) is an integral of f (x), then so is F(x) + C, where C is any constant. The arbitrary constant C is
called the constant of integration. The indefinite integral of f (x) is written as thus
Indefinite integral
The function f (x) is called the integrand. The Mean Value Theorem can be used to show that, if two
functions have the same derivative on an interval, then they differ at most by a constant; that is, if
then
F(x) − G(x) = C (C a constant).
B. BASIC FORMULAS
Familiarity with the following fundamental integration formulas is essential.