Mary M. Tai: The Mathematician Who Rediscovered the Trapezoidal Rule

Mary M. Tai: The Mathematician Who Rediscovered the Trapezoidal Rule

Mary M. Tai is a mathematician who is best known for her rediscovery of the trapezoidal rule for numerical integration. The trapezoidal rule is a simple and efficient method for calculating the area under a curve, and it is used in a wide variety of applications, including engineering, physics, and medicine. Tai's rediscovery of the trapezoidal rule was published in the journal Diabetes Care in 1994. In her paper, she presented a new derivation of the rule and showed how it could be used to calculate the area under glucose tolerance curves. The trapezoidal rule is a numerical integration method that uses the trapezoids formed by connecting consecutive points on a curve to approximate the area under the curve. The rule is simple to implement and can be used to calculate the area under any curve, regardless of its shape. Tai's rediscovery of the trapezoidal rule was significant because it showed that the rule could be used to calculate the area under glucose tolerance curves. Gluco…