POWER SERIES – Maclaurin and Taylor Series

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this lesson, students will be able to:
• find the Maclaurin and Taylor series expansions of given functions
• find Maclaurin expansions of functions by combining known power series together
• find Maclaurin expansions by using differentiation and integration
• manipulate Taylor series of known functions to obtain Taylor series for other functions.
• evaluate a power series in terms of a known function. Use this to evaluate certain numerical
series.

BEFORE WE START…..
YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW TO:

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SKILLS TEST

POWER SERIES

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REPRESENTATION OF FUNCTIONS AS POWER SERIES
With this section we will start talking about how to represent functions with power series. The natural
question of why we might want to do this will be answered in a couple of sections once we actually
learn how to do this.

Geometric Power Series

We have so many different techniques to convert functions into Power series:

1. Substitution (above example)
2. Differentiation
3. Integration
4. Construct a Power series using series operations

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Alternate method to convert function into Power series
Another way to determine a power series for a rational function such as the one in above example is
to use long division. For instance, by dividing (2 + x) into 4, you obtain the result as shown above.

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OPERATION WITH POWER SERIES
These operations, used with differentiation and integration, provide a means of developing power
series for a variety of elementary functions. (For simplicity, the following properties are stated for a
series centered at 0.)

The operations described above can change the interval of convergence for the resulting series. For
example, in the following addition, the interval of convergence for the sum is the intersection of the
intervals of convergence of the two-original series.

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Solution From above Example, we know that

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Or

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INTERVAL OF CONVERGENCE
The set of points for which the series converges is the interval of convergence, and this set consists of
the interval ] -R, R [.

RADIUS OF CONVERGENCE

The above R is known as the radius of convergence.

In this we have not considered the endpoints of the interval in our discussions. This only give us the
open interval of convergence, i.e. they do not tell us whether a power series converges when x lies at
either of the endpoints of the interval. These endpoints must be tested separately.

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IN OTHER WORDS:

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EXAMPLE

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EXAMPLE (Power series using Differentiation and Integration)

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TAYLOR POLYNOMIAL

TAYLOR SERIES / MACLAURIN SERIES

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EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

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EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

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EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

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USING TAYLOR SERIES TO APPROXIMATE FUNCTIONS
Taylor Series can be used to approximate functions to a desired degree of accuracy. The
approximations can be used to either evaluate functions at specific values of. x, or to differentiate or
integrate the function.
The example below illustrates how to use Taylor series to approximate ln(1.1 ) within a desired level
of accuracy.

EXAMPLE

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USEFUL APPLICATIONS OF POWER SERIES
EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

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MISCELLENUOUS EXERCISE

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^END OF CLACULUS PART 5^

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