# Adaptive Methods
Adaptive methods are used to estimate the integral of a function on a closed and
bounded interval. The basic idea is to take smaller subintervals in regions where the
function changes significantly and larger subintervals in regions where the function
doesn't change significantly. What is significant depends on the quadrature technique
involved, for Simpson's rule, if the function is nearly cubic (or quadratic, or linear, or
constant) then the function doesn't change significantly from being cubic and a large
interval can be used.