Question: when do we use integration?

Answer:

The job of calculus is to handle quantities that vary over the domain of the problem
at hand. Often, and particularly in introductory physics, we care about quantities that vary
in time. We cannot put them into our equations as constants.

Suppose we need to find the distance travelled. If acceleration or velocity is constant we

can easily find the answer using laws of motion
But if the velocity is not constant over a period of time. Then we need to use an equation
to describe the velocity and integrate it. It is adding up of different parts/or distances
travelled during the motion of the body which gives us the total displacement.

x vdt

It allows us to handle variable velocity. Here we add the small distances dx moved for
each different value of velocity. For this we put velocity as a function of time and
integrate.
Similarly imagine a continuous body such as a disc. A disc is made up of a number of
particles and each particle has its own moment of inertia. To simplify our problems we
divide it into infinite rings and add up the moment of inertia due to these rings to get
answer.
In centre of mass whenever we deal with a continuous body we need to apply integration
and
When the body is a point object, or we know the position of its COM - to treat the body as
a point object- we apply integration.
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