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everybody!
Could you, guys, please explain why the answer for the exact integration
quad( @(x)x.^3-2.*x,0,2)
is
-2.220446049250313e-016
istead of a zero, just like it should be?
The
quadfunction computes the integral numerically, not symbolically.Even though most integration methods will compute the integral of a 3rd degree polynomial ‘exactly’ , that is only true if all the calculations are done exactly as well. When doing the calculation on a computer, round-off error still is a factor.