(a) Because r(t) is measured in cubic feet per second and △t is measured in seconds, the definite integral
∫060r(t)dt
measures the total amount of water (in cubic feet) that flow through the dam in 60 seconds.
(b) With 7 function values and thus 6 subintervals as the maximum number of intervals we can use, we can compute M3 since we need to use every other data point to evaluate the function. Doing so,
∫060r(t)dt≈M3=r(10)⋅20+r(30)⋅20+r(50)⋅20=(2100+3000+5100)⋅20=204000. Thus, approximately 204000 cubic feet of water pass through the dam on the interval 0≤t≤60.
We observe that r appears to be increasing at an increasing rate on 0≤t≤60. In particular, the data suggests that r is concave up on the interval. As such, the trapezoid rule will over-estimate the true value of the definite integral and the midpoint rule will under-estimate the value. Thus,
∫060r(t)dt>M3=204000.
(c) In order to estimate the integral using S6, we need to know the value of T3 along with M3. To find T3, we compute L3 and R3. First
L3=r(0)⋅20+r(20)⋅20+r(40)⋅20=(2000+2400+3900)⋅20=166000. Similarly,
R3=r(20)⋅20+r(40)⋅20+r(60)⋅20=(2400+3900+6500)⋅20=256000. Thus,
T3=2L3+R3=2166000+256000=211000. Finally, we now have the information needed to compute S6. We thus find that
∫060r(t)dt≈S6=32M3+T3=32⋅204000+211000=3619000≈206333.33.
(d) First,
601S6=60206333.33=930950≈3438.89. This is one estimate for the average value of r on [0,60] since
rAVG[0,60]=60−01∫060r(t)dt, and ∫060r(t)dt≈S6. Thus, on average, water is flowing through the dam at a rate of 3438.89 cubic feet per second.
Next,
72000+2100+2400+3000+3900+5100+6500=725000≈3571.43
is the average of the 7 known values of r(t) on the interval [0,60], and thus is one estimate of the average value of r. This average treats all of them equally, as opposed to S6 which counts midpoints more than endpoints and is developed in such a way to remove some of the error inherent in using simple estimates like L6 and R6. This simple average of 7 rate values is analogous to using a left or right Riemann sum, and thus we expect that the estimate of the average value of r that comes from S6 is more accurate for computing the average rate at which water flows through the dam.