An automobile computer gives a digital readout of fuel consumption in gallons per hour. During a trip, a passenger recorded the fuel consumption every 5 minutes for a full hour of travel, shown below. Use the Trapezoidal Rule to approximate the total fuel consumption during the hour.
time gal/h
0 2.5
5 2.4
10 2.3
15 2.4
20 2.4
25 2.5
30 2.6
35 2.5
40 2.4
45 2.3
50 2.4
55 2.4
60 2.3
Trapezoidal Rule:
To find the area bounded by a curve, we divide the total area into several trapezoids of equal widths. This is a numerical method to find the integration.
The following formula determines the area bounded by a function when the trapezoidal rule is applied:
