Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2005 Paper 2 10 a Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
For a strictly decreasing function, in the interior of . Integrating over the unit interval and summing from to gives the integral comparison for a nonincreasing nonnegative function:Geometrically, right-endpoint rectangles lie below the curve and left-endpoint rectangles above it. If “decreasing” permits flat pieces, use non-strict inequalities unless strictness is ensured on some interval. When , the endpoint value is also needed; the power function below is defined there.