# Why does changing variable of integration change the result of a definite integral?

I've defined the following two very similar recursive functions:

ET1[n_, x_] := If[n == 0, 0,
Integrate[(ET1[n - 1, x]), {z, 0, x}] +
Integrate[(y + ET1[n - 1, y]), {y, x, 1}]]

ET2[n_, x_] := If[n == 0, 0,
Integrate[(ET2[n - 1, x]), {y, 0, x}] +
Integrate[(y + ET2[n - 1, y]), {y, x, 1}]]


The only difference is whether the first Integrate uses z or y, and the integrand includes neither of those variables. I don't have any idea why this should affect the result; in either case the integral should come out to x * ET[n-1, x] (the reason I'm not just writing that out in the first place is that I think the integral makes the logic clearer). For n=1 and n=2, the two functions in fact appear to agree for all x between 0 and 1. But on Mathematica 10.4.1, I'm getting that ET1[3,0] = 13/12 while ET2[3,0] = 7/8. For what it's worth, if I replace the first Integrate with what it should evaluate to (i.e. x * ET[n-1, x]), then it gives the same answer as ET1.

What gives?

• I took the version 10 tag off, since this happens on other versions as well. – Michael E2 Aug 7 '16 at 10:55

You can do a semi-trace by inactivating Integrate:
Block[{Integrate = Inactive[Integrate]}, ET1[3, 0]]

Block[{Integrate = Inactive[Integrate]}, ET2[3, 0]]