ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Integration (mathematics)

Integration is a math tool that helps us find the total or complete amount of something. Let's imagine you have a jar of candies, and you want to know how many candies are in the jar. You could count them one by one, but that would take a long time and be very tedious.

So instead, we can use integration, which is like a shortcut. Integration is also useful when you have a lot of candy flavors and you want to know the total number of candies of each flavor.

To use integration, we need to start by understanding something called a function. A function is like a machine that takes in a number and gives you another number based on some mathematical rule.

Now, imagine you have a function that tells you how many candies are in the jar at any given moment. This function could say that at time 0, there are 0 candies. Then at time 1, there are 10 candies. At time 2, there are 20 candies. And so on. These numbers can be anything, and the function can also be more complex.

Integration helps us find out a lot of things about this function. For example, if we want to know the total number of candies in the jar from time 0 to time 10, integration can help us with that. It adds up all the numbers the function gives us between time 0 and time 10. In this case, it would add up 0 + 10 + 20 + ... all the way up to 100.

It's important to note that integration doesn't just give you the final answer, but also helps you understand how the number of candies in the jar changes over time. It can tell you if the number of candies is increasing or decreasing, and at what rate.

Integration can also be used for other things, not just counting candies. For example, it can help us find the area of irregular shapes, by adding up lots of little parts. It's like if you have a coloring book with lots of little squares, and you want to know how many crayon strokes it will take to color the whole picture. Integration can help you figure it out.

So, integration is really just a way to add up a bunch of numbers to find out the total or complete amount of something, whether it's candies, areas, or even other things in math and science. It saves us time and helps us understand how things change over time.
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