Welcome to Calculus.

I'm Professor Griest.

We're about to begin lecture 54, on power
series.
>> At last, we've assembled all the
tools we need to adequately and accurately
describe how, when, and in what manner
infinite series converge.
In this lesson we are going to apply these
tools to power series.
>> In this chapter and indeed in this
course we have seen several instances of
turning functions into sequences through
some
sampling process.
We now turn to the problem of reversing
that machine of converting sequences into
functions.
One mechanism for doing so is the power
series.
A power series in x is simply a series
that has the variable
x inside of it as a monomial term,
something
of the form sum, n goes from 0 to
infinity, of a sub n,
x to the n, where now a sub n is
considered a coefficient.
We're going to think of the notion of a
power series as a machine, or
an operator, that converts a sequence, a
sub n, into a function,
f of x.
Let's begin with some simple examples.
If we have a sequence.
All of whose terms are zero.
Except for one in the nth slot.
Then the power series is simply the
monomial x to the n.
Now, if we
have a finite sequence.
In the sense that only finitely many of
the terms are non-zero.
Then this will have a power series, that
is a sum
of monomials, with coefficients in front
of them that eventually terminates.
We call that a polynomial.
Now, if we have something that does not
eventually end in 0s, we're going
to have a bit more careful, but this isn't
so mysterious.
If we have the sequence of all 1s, we
recognize.
That the power series for that sequence is
simply the geometric series.
And this gives us the function, 1 over 1
minus x, at least
when x is less than 1 in absolute value.

Other sequences can

be easily seen to correspond to
interesting functions, though one
may have to do a bit of algebra, to see
it.
If we look at certain sequences, we'll
recognize some old friends.
Log of 1 plus x, or e to the x, these
correspond to certain power series.
Now, what if we have a sequence that does
not go to zero.
Say, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, et
cetera, will that converge to anything?
Well of course, this isn't so bad.
This
one corresponds to the function 1 over 1
quantity 1 plus x squared.
As you can see from squaring the geometric
series.
In fact, we can have sequences that grow
rather large, but
which have power series that converge to
something very simple.
Now, what if we just take any old
interesting sequence of coefficients.
What will that converge to?
Sometimes it's a bit of a mystery.
Let's look at the Fibonacci Sequence and
let us denote by script F the power series
whose coefficients
are F sub n, the terms in the Fibonacci
sequence.
If we were to multiply this power series
by x,
what would happen?
It would give us a new power series.
Associated to a shift, a
right shift of the Fibonacci sequence.
if we were to do it again
then we would shift over to the right yet
once more.
And the reason for doing this is to line
up a coefficient
to match the recursion relation.
That the Fibonacci sequence
satisfies Fn plus 2 equals Fn
plus 1 plus Fn.
Now if we if we take a
look at the coefficients in front of the
monomial term x to the
n, for these three power series that we
have written down, then we
see from the recursion relation, the
relationship between them.
The first is the sum of the latter, two.
So if we were to subtract x times script f
and x squared times script f from script
f.
What would we obtain?
Most of the coefficients of the monomial

terms are zero, because the recursion

relation.
When we add up these power series, the
only
thing that is non zero Is in the constant
term where we get f naught and the first
order term where we get f1x minus f naught
x.
Now because we know the exact values of f
naught and f1, we see that on the left
we have f minus xf minus x
squared f.
On the right we have simply x.
Solving for script f gives us the power
series formula that script
F, the power series, the Fibonacci
sequence is equal
to X over 1 minus X, minus X squared.
Now, that's what it is, but what does it
mean?
What do we do with this.
These functions that generate the power
series, have
within in them, all sorts of interesting
questions.
They tie together recursive
properties, enumerative propertives,
approximation
properties, and convergence.
We're going to focus on issues of
convergence.
Consider a power series f of x, the sum
of a sub n, x to the n, the following
theorem
holds.
For some capital R between zero and
infinity, perhaps achieving either of
those values,
f of x has the following convergence
behavior.
It converges absolutely if X is less than
R
in absolute value, it diverges if X is
bigger than R
in absolute value.
Now this R is a very special number
associated to the power series.
It's called the radius of convergence.
Let's see, how would we prove this
theorem?
What tool would we turn to to determine
convergences.
Well, lets start with our friend, the
ratio test.
Here what we need to do is compute row.
The limit as n goes to infinity of the
ratio.
The n plus first term to the nth term Now
what are the terms.
Well here they are a sub n times x to the

n.
So, taking the ratio of incident terms
will tell us what we need.
And we have to be careful to take the
absolute values since the ratio test
requires a positive sequence.
Okay, so, doing that, what do we see?
We get some cancellation with the Xs and
we can rewrite
this as the limit as N goes to infinity of
the
absolute value of A sub N plus 1 over the
absolute
value of A sub N times the absolute value
of X.
Now, if that is less than one, we have
absolute convergence.
If that
is bigger than one, we have divergence.
So, where is this
capital R coming from.
Well, it is precisely
the reciprocal of this limiting
coefficient.
Since if we divide by this on both sides,
we get the appropriate answer.
When rho is
less than 1, that's the same thing as
saying.
That x is strictly less than r in absolute
value.
That means that we have convergence.
When Rho is bigger than one, that's the
same thing as saying x is greater
than r, in absolute value.
That means divergence.
So what matters is this radius of
convergence, capital
R.
The limit as n goes to infinity of
absolute a sub n over a sub n plus 1.
Be sure to remember that, and be sure to
remember that it's
the nth term over the n plus first term,
not the other way.
Now this radius of convergence is called a
radius
of convergence because it's telling you
the distance away
from zero past which your power series is
going to diverge.
But within that, you're fine.
Now you do have to be careful.
We said nothing about the endpoints of the
domain, because
of course, the ratio test tells us nothing
in that case.
So you're going to have to be careful and
check explicitly.
At those end points.

Let's see a simple example.

If we consider f of x, the sum over n,
negative 1 to the n, square root of n,
quantity 2x to the
n.
Then our coefficient A sub n is negative 1
to the n square root of n 2 to the n.
To compute the radius of
convergence, we take the limit of the a
sub n divided
by a sub n plus 1, all in absolute value.
That gives us the limit as n goes to
infinity of square root of n, two to the
n, over square root of n plus 1, 2 to the
n plus 1.
That is as you can easily see, one half.
Therefore, within one half of zero, we
have absolute convergence.
Outside of that, we have divergence.
What happens at the endpoints?
Well, we need to check.
What happens at x equals negative one half
if we plug in a value of
negative one half in 4x, what do we get?
We get the sum over N
of square root of n.
Since the negative 1 to the ns cancel,
that is a divergent series.
So at the left hand endpoint, we have
divergence.
At the right hand endpoint, at x equals
one half, you
can easily see that we get the same sort
of series.
That too, is going to diverge by the nth
term test.
Now other series that we've seen
throughout this course
have similar behavior.
If we look at the geometric series, this
is the
power series where all the coefficients
are equal to one.
The radius of convergence in this case
equals
one and this diverges at both end points.
At plus and minus one.
If, on the other hand, we consider the
power series with coefficient one
over n.
Xn goes from one to infinity.
Then what do we see.
This too has a ratio of convergence equal
to one.
And at the right hand end point
we obtain the harmonic series, which
certainly diverges.
But at the left-hand endpoint, at x equals
negative 1, we get the alternating
harmonic series.

That converges but it does so

conditionally,
not absolutely.
If we consider the power
series x to the n over n squared
where the coefficient is 1 over n squared,
this also has radiance of
convergence equal to one but, it converges
at both end points.
And does so therefore absolutely.
Some power series come to us in a
slightly different form, that of a shifted
power series.
Something of the form, sum over n of a sub
n times quantity x minus c to the nth.
This of course is just a power series
shifted
over by c units.
In this case
if we compute the exact same radius of
convergence,
then what we will find is that this
shifted power series
converges when x minus c is less then r in
absolute value.
That is when x is within r
of C.
R is thus, a distance to the center, C of
the shifted power series.
For an example of a shifted power series,
consider the sum of 3x minus 2 to the
n over n times 4 to the n.
Now, this is not in the form of x minus c
to the n, so we're
going to have to do a little bit of
algebra to get it into that form.
We claim that by factoring out a three
quarters to the n
and by absorbing that 3 to the n term from
the denominator
into the numerator, we get the equivalent
sum of 1 over n
times three-quarters to the n, times x
minus two-thirds to the n.
That means that this shifted power series
centered at x equals two-thirds.
Now, to determine the radius of
convergence, we isolate the coefficient.
Okay, so then, there's one over n times
three-quarters to the n.
We compute the radius, r, as the limit as
n goes
to infinity of a sub n over a sub n plus
1.
That yields, after some algebra, the limit
of n plus 1 over n times four
thirds, which is precisely four thirds.
Therefore the domain of absolute
convergence is all
x within four thirds of two thirds the

center.
Now, what happens at the boundary points.
Well on
the left we have x equals negative two
thirds, that is two thirds minus four
thirds.
Substituting in x equals negative 2 3rds,
we obtain
after a little bit of cancellation the
alternating harmonic series.
That, of course, converges.
When we substitute in the right-hand
endpoint.
That is, x equals 2 3rds plus 4 3rds, or
2, then we obtain,
substituting in a series, which is the
harmonic series.
This of course, diverges, so that we have
conditional convergence.
On the left.
Divergence on the right.
>> In our next lesson we're going to
focus attention on a particular type of
power
series obtained from a smooth function f
of x.
Perhaps you've heard of these, they're
called
Taylor series.