Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zucker42 1925 days ago
This comment is just wrong. It's still integration even if you only have enough data to approximate the integral. Also, Wikipedia's definition of the trapezoidal rule permits intervals with different sizes.[1]

I don't know why you'd defend a researcher who lacked basic math knowledge, and more damningly refused to acknowledge her mistake once it was brought to light.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapezoidal_rule

1 comments

> It's still integration

In my view integration is by definition part of calculus, and requires the concept of the infinitesimal. (This is maybe semantic, but Wikipedia agrees with me in this case).

The paper shares one of the many goals of integration, which is to find the area under the curve, but you literally cannot use integration as the tool to do this here.

So, it's not integration.

A comment below calls this "numerical integration" - which I also find dubious. Numerical integration is still using calculus - you have to know the whole function - but without getting to a closed form answer.