Integral of a Polynomial in Python

Question

How would we write a function in python that returns the definite integral of a polynomial between two points (X_1 and X_2)?

The function takes 3 arguments:

• a list A of polynomial coefficients (i.e. for polynomial f(x)=5x^4−2x+1, this list becomes A=[5,0,0,−2,1])
• a real number X_1
• a real number X_2

We are given the formula for the definite integral of a polynomial such as

My attempt at this function is below, however the output returns 0.2

    def take_integral(A, X_1, X_2):

            integral = 0

            for i in range(len(A)):
                integral = A*(X_2**(i+1) - X_1**(i+1))/(i+1)
            return integral

    print(take_integral([1, 2, 1], 0, 3))

The expected result from the function should be:

    print(take_integral([1, 2, 1], 0, 3))
    21.0
    print(take_integral([5, 0, 0, -2, 1], 0, 1))
    1.0

Answer 1

A few points here:

• There's a serious problem with multiplying A with the whole bunch of stuff afterwards. A is a list, where the rest gives a float. The computer doesn't necessarily know what to do with that. Imagine if I told you to multiply a set of crayons by 4. You can guess what I want, but ultimately, it doesn't really make sense. You want to multiply the contents of the list instead of the list itself.

• With your given formula for computing a definite integral of a polynomial, I'm pretty sure there should be a sum where you add all the terms together. That's what the definition of a polynomial is, right? Currently, you're computing each term and erasing the previous term. So, you need to add them up instead.

• Your attempt also kind of..."flips" the exponents. Since the list of coefficients A is sorted in descending order of power (A[0] being the coefficient of the highest power), doing X_1**(i+1) when i=0 in your sample input where A=[1,2,1] would be multiplying the highest power with the lowest exponent instead of the desired 3. So you want to iterate through the list from left to right, but your i when you're raising your X's needs to decrease. Thankfully, len(A) comes in handy for solving that.

  • If you do len(A)-i, you'll get exactly the i+1 according to the formula. This is true since len(A) will give the one more than the highest power in your polynomial, and i starts from 0 to one less than the length of A, and as a result gives you i+1 as per the formula.

Here's the code that will give you the right answers:

def take_integral(A, X_1, X_2):

        integral = 0

        for i in range(len(A)):
            integral += A[i]*(X_2**((len(A))-i) - X_1**((len(A))-i))/((len(A))-i)
        return integral

print(take_integral([1, 2, 1], 0, 3))
21
print(take_integral([5, 0, 0, -2, 1], 0, 1))
1