Taylors theorem

Recall the geometric series gave our rst example of nding a power series representation of a function 1 + x + x2 + x3 + = 1 1x for |x| < 1

By modifying this series, we found power series expansions for other functons, for example, 1 + x2 + x4 + x6 + = 1 1 x2 for |x| < 1

In this section, we present a much more general approach to nding power series expansions. Lets begin by assuming we have such an expansion of a function f possessing derivatives of all orders. Can we nd a formula for the coecients of the power series in terms of f ? The function does determine the power series, so we expect the answer should be yes. Lets see how. Suppose f has this expansion about x = b f (x) = a0 + a1 (x b) + a2 (x b)2 + a3 (x b)3 + a4 (x b)4 + (1)

First, notice that evaluating this series at x = b, every term after the rst drops out, leavng f (b) = a0 Well explore this idea more fully in the next section, but for now we note that dierentiating Eq. (1) gives f (x) = a1 + 2a2 (x b) + 3a3 (x b)2 + 4a4 (x b)3 + Evaluating this series at x = b, every term after the rst drops out, leavng f (b) = a1 Dierentiating Eq. (1) twice gives f (x) = 2a2 + 3 2a3 (x b) + 4 3a4 (x b)2 + and then f (b) = 2a2 1

Continuing in this way, we nd f (b) = 3 2a3 f (b) = 4 3 2a4 and so on. This observation is the rst step in understanding Taylors theorem. Here f (n) (b) denotes the nth derivative of f (x), evaluated at x = b. Taylors theorem Suppose f (x) has derivatives of all orders at x = b. The Taylor series of f (x) expanded about x = b is f (x) = f (n) (b) (x b)n n ! n=0

Recalling the Radius of Convergence Theorem, the convergence of the Taylors series to f (x) is described by one of three possibilities. 1. Converges only for x = b. 2. Converges for |x b| < R and diverges for |x b| > R. 3. Converges for all x. Also recall the number R is called the radius of convergence of the series, and that the endpoints |x b| = r can be tricky and must be handled individually. Just because weve written a power series, called the Taylor series, with coecients determined from the function f doesnt really prove that the function dened by the Taylor series equals f on the interval of convergence of the Taylor series. To investigate this, lets denote by Tn (x) the nth polynomial containing the terms through xn in the Taylor series. This is called the nth degree Taylor polynomial of f . We want to show that for each x in the interval of convergence of the Taylor series lim Tn (x) = f (x)
n

To do this, dene the Taylor remainder Rn by Rn (x) = f (x) Tn (x) Showing Rn (x) 0 as n usually is done by applying Taylors Inequality If |f n+1 (x)| M for all |x b| C , then |Rn (x)| M |x b|n+1 (n + 1)! (2)

for all |x b| C . We illustrate this by nding the Taylor series about x = 0 for f (x) = sin(x) and establishing that the interval of convergence is (, ). 2

Example 1 Find the taylor series of f (x) = sin x expanded about x = 0. Show the interval of convergence is (, ). First, compute the derivatives and look for a pattern. f (x) = cos(x) f (x) = sin(x) f (x) = cos(x) f (4) (x) = sin(x) f (5) (x) = cos(x) So we see sin(x) = x f (0) = 1 f (0) = 0 f (0) = 1 f (4) (0) = 0 f (5) (0) = 1 x3 x5 x7 x9 + + + 3! 5! 7! 9!

(3)

Taking x to be the n = 1 term, the nth term is (1)n1 x2n1 /(2n 1)!. Fig. 1 shows the graph of f (x) = sin(x), together with the Taylor polynomials of orders 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. Note that higher-order Taylor polynomials match f (x) over a larger interval.

Figure 1: Taylor polynomials for sin(x) through order 11. To nd the interval of convergence, observe that for all n, and for all x, |f n+1 (x)| 1 So in Taylors inequality (2)we can take M = 1 and C = , for each x obtaining |Rn (x)| |x|n+1 (n + 1)!

Now apply the Ratio Test |x|n+2 /(n + 2)! |x| = lim n +1 n |x| /(n + 1)! n (n + 2)! = 0 for all x lim and we see the radius of convergence is innite. In this series for sin(x), the variable x is expressed in radians. For example, sin(90) gives 0.893997, not 1. Referring to Fig. 1, we see that to get a reasonable approximatation of sin(90) we must use a lot of terms in the Taylor series. For example, the 21st -degree Taylor polynomial for sin(90) gives 2.035 1021 , and the 23rd-degree Taylor polynomial gives 3.22 1022 . Always use radians and everything will be ne. Arguments similar to those of Example 1 give Example 2 The Taylor series for f (x) = cos(x) expanded about x = 0 is cos(x) = 1 x4 x6 x8 x2 + + 2! 4! 6! 8!

Taking 1 to be the n = 0 term, the nth term (1)n x2n /(2n)!. Example 3 The Taylor series for f (x) = ex expanded about x = 0 is ex = 1 + x + x4 x5 x6 x2 + + + + 2! 4! 5! 6!

Taking 1 to be the n = 0 term, the nth term xn /n!. Example 4 To nd the Taylor series of f (x) = (1 x)1 expanded about x = 0, rst compute some derivatives and look for a pattern. f (x) = (1 x)2 f (x) = 2(1 x)3 f (x) = 3 2(1 x)4 f (4) (x) = 4!(1 x)5 In general we have f (n) (x) = n!(1 x)(n+1) and so the Taylor series expanded about x = 0 is n!(1)(n+1) n f (n) (0) n xn x = x = n ! n ! n=0 n=0 n=0 agreeing with the geometric series calculation. Example 5 We cant nd the Taylor series of f (x) = ln(x) expanded about x = 0 because neither ln(x) nor any of its derivatives are dened at x = 0. We can nd the Taylor series expanded about any number b > 0. Because 4

the interval of convergence has center the point x = b about which the series is expanded, and because the interval of convergence cannot include the point x = 0, the Taylor series about x = b cannot represent the function for x > 2b. The larger the value of b, the larger the interval over which the Taylor series can converge to the function. For this example, well take b = 1. Dierentiating f and evaluating at x = 1 we nd these values f (x) = ln(x) f (x) = 1/x f (x) = 1/x2 f (x) = 2/x3 f (4) (x) = 3!/x4 f (n) (x) = (1)n+1 (n 1)!/xn f (1) = ln(1) = 0 f (1) = 1 f (1) = 1 f (1) = 2 f (4) (1) = 3! ... f (n) (1) = (1)n+1 (n 1)!

Applying Taylors theorem with these values of f (n) (1) we nd ln(x) = (x 1) (x 1)2 (x 1)3 (x 1)4 (x 1)5 + + + 2 3 4 5