SIMPSON'S RULE

[Simp.son's rule] n [Thomas Simpson d. 1761 Eng. mathematician] (1875): a method for approximating the area under a curve over a given interval that involves partitioning the interval by an odd number n + 1 of equally spaced ordinates and adding the areas of the n/2 figures formed by pairs of successive odd-numbered ordinates and the parabolas which they determine with their included even-numbered ordinates