Integration – Necessity of Brackets for Integration

integrationnotation

Suppose I want to integrate $f(x)+g(x)$. Can this be written as
$\int f(x)+g(x)\, dx$
or are brackets necessary, i.e.
$\int \left(f(x)+g(x)\right) \,dx$?

Best Answer

This is a conventional exception. If I were going to write $(f(x)+g(x))\,dx$, with no integral sign (e.g. when a differential equation is written as $a(x,y)\,dx+b(x,y)\,dy=0$ and the expression $a(x,y)$ or $b(x,y)$ has several terms) I would not omit the parentheses. Everything within the parentheses is multiplied by $dx$. If $f(x)+g(x)$ is in meters per second and $dx$ is in seconds, then $(f(x)+g(x))\,dx$. However, in something like $\displaystyle\int x^2+3x+10 \, dx$ it is quite conventional to omit delimeters. It is as if the expression $$ \int \cdots\cdots\cdots\cdots dx $$ acts in some way on whatever is written where "$\cdots\cdots\cdots\cdots$" appears.

Related Question