You can read some comments to her article and her response in [2]. I think she should have acknowledged that her method is the Trapezoidal Rule. Maybe she has in the 20+ years since. I don't know.
The whole saga reminds me of a time that member of the biology department asked me, "Why does the Ti-83 calculate scientific notation wrong?" I asked what she meant. She gave me this example:
Calculate (3.75 x 10^23)/(9.34 x 10^(-5))
She enters the problem into the calculator to show me that it does indeed calculate the wrong value. She entered
3.75 x 10^23/9.34 x 10^(-5)
I had to explain to her that the order of operations was important.
[1] http://johncanning.net/wp/?p=1863
[2] http://www.math.uconn.edu/~kconrad/math1132s14/handouts/taic...
Numerical methods like the one mentioned are basic stuff in mathematics. It's like someone claimed to have invented using derivatives in mathematical models. It's beyond eye-roll-inducing.
