Taylor series

From Citizendium
Revision as of 03:37, 28 April 2007 by imported>Charles Blackham
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A Taylor series is an infinite sum of polynomial terms to approximate a function in the region about a certain point . This is only possible if the function is behaving analytically in this neighbourhood. Such series about the point are known as Maclaurin series, after Scottish mathematician Colin Maclaurin. They work by ensuring that the approximate series matches up to the nth derivative of the function being approximated when it is approximated by a polynomial of degree .

Proof

See Taylor's theorem

Series

General formula

where is the first derivative of the function , and is the second derivative, and so on.

Exponential & Logarithmic functions



Trigonometric functions






where Bk=kth Bernoulli number.



Inverse trigonometric functions



Hyperbolic functions





Inverse hyperbolic functions



Calculation of Taylor series for more complicated functions