Newton–Cotes formulas

In numerical analysis, the Newton–Cotes formulae, also called the Newton–Cotes quadrature rules or simply Newton–Cotes rules, are a group of formulae for numerical integration (also called quadrature) based on evaluating the integrand at equally spaced points. They are named after Isaac Newton and Roger Cotes.

Newton–Cotes formulae can be useful if the value of the integrand at equally spaced points is given. If it is possible to change the points at which the integrand is evaluated, then other methods such as Gaussian quadrature and Clenshaw–Curtis quadrature are probably more suitable.

It is assumed that the value of a function ƒ defined on [a, b] is known at equally spaced points x_i, for i = 0, …, n, where x₀ = a and x_n = b. There are two types of Newton–Cotes formulae, the "closed" type which uses the function value at all points, and the "open" type which does not use the function values at the endpoints. The closed Newton–Cotes formula of degree n is stated as

where x_i = h i + x₀, with h (called the step size) equal to (x_n − x₀) / n = (b − a) / n. The w_i are called weights.

As can be seen in the following derivation the weights are derived from the Lagrange basis polynomials. They depend only on the x_i and not on the function ƒ. Let L(x) be the interpolation polynomial in the Lagrange form for the given data points (x₀, ƒ(x₀) ), …, (x_n, ƒ(x_n) ), then

The open Newton–Cotes formula of degree n is stated as

The weights are found in a manner similar to the closed formula.

A Newton–Cotes formula of any degree n can be constructed. However, for large n a Newton–Cotes rule can sometimes suffer from catastrophic Runge's phenomenon where the error grows exponentially for large n. Methods such as Gaussian quadrature and Clenshaw–Curtis quadrature with unequally spaced points (clustered at the endpoints of the integration interval) are stable and much more accurate, and are normally preferred to Newton–Cotes. If these methods cannot be used, because the integrand is only given at the fixed equidistributed grid, then Runge's phenomenon can be avoided by using a composite rule, as explained below.

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