It is often said that "Differentiation is mechanics, integration is art." We have more or less simple rules in one direction but not in the other (e.g. product rule/simple <-> integration by parts/u-substitution/often tricky).


There are all kinds of anecdotes alluding to this fact (see e.g. this [nice one from Feynman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz_integral_rule#In_popular_culture)). Another consequence of this is that differentiation is well automatable within CAS but integration is often not.


**My question**  

We know that there is a deep symmetry based on the [Fundamental theorem of calculus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_calculus), yet there seems to be another fundamental structural asymmetry. What is going on here...and why?


Thank you


**EDIT**  

Some peope asked for clarification, so I try to give it. The main objection to the question is that asymmetry between two inverse operations is more the rule than the exception in math so they are not very surprised by this behaviour.


There is no doubt about that - but, and that is a big *but*, there is always a good *reason* for that kind of behaviour! E.g. multiplying prime numbers is obviously easier than factoring the result since you have to test for the factors doing the latter. Here it is understandable how you define the original operation and its inverse.


With symbolic differentiation and integration the case doesn't seem to be that clear cut - this is why there are so many good discussions taking place in this thread (which by the way please me very much). It is this *Why* at the bottom of things I am trying to understand.


Thank you all again!



Why is differentiating mechanics and integration art?
One relevant thing here is that you are referring to differentiating and integrating within the class of so-called [elementary functions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_function), which are built recursively from polynomials and complex exponential and logarithmic functions and taking their closure under the arithmetic operations and composition. Here one can argue by recursion to show that the derivative of an elementary function is elementary, but the antiderivatives might not be elementary. This should surprise one no more than the fact than the square of a rational number is rational, but the square root of a rational number might be irrational. (The analogy isn't completely idle, as shown by [differential Galois theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_Galois_theory).) 


In other words, the symmetry you refer to is really based on much wider classes of functions (e.g. continuous and continuously differentiable functions), far beyond the purview of the class of elementary functions. 


But let's put that aside. The question might be: is there a mechanical procedure which will decide when an elementary function has an elementary antiderivative (and if it does, exhibit that antiderivative)? There is an almost-answer to this, the so-called [Risch algorithm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risch_algorithm), which I believe is a basis for many symbolic integration packages. But see particularly the issues mentioned in the section "Decidability". 


There is another interesting asymmetry: in first-order logic, derivatives are definable in the sense that given some expansion of the structure of real numbers, say for example the real numbers as an exponential field, the derivative of a definable function is again definable by a first-order formula. But in general there is no purely first-order construction of for example the Riemann integral (involving quantification over finer and finer meshes). I seem to recall that there are similar difficulties in getting a completely satisfactory notion of integration for recursively defined functions on the surreals, due in part to the incompleteness (i.e., the many holes) in the surreal number line. 


