Welcome to Calculus.

I'm Professor Greist.

We're about to begin Lecture 57, Bonus
material.
Well, that seems like a bad way to end the
course, talking about
what we can't do.
Let's change things up a little bit.
Go back to the very beginning of this
class.
I began with the question, what is e to
the x?
Well by now, you all know exactly what e
to
the x is and means, on so many different
levels.
But let's reconsider this question, one
more time
from the point of view in Discrete
Calculus.
And what I'd like to emphasize is a
particular point of unity, between
Discrete and Continuous Calculus.
This is Newton's formula, something that
I've been saving for a special occasion.
Let's begin.
Recall that the forward difference
operator Delta can be expressed as the
Shift e minus the identity I.
If we rearrange terms a little bit, then
we can express the left Shift
E as Delta plus I.
Now, let's say that we want to shift
over not one slot, but, n places.
Then, we
can express this operator as a power, E to
the n, which thus can be expressed as
quantity Delta plus
I to the n.
Now, what happens when we multiply that
out?
Well, we can use the binomial theorem to
express E to the n.
As the sum, k goes from zero to n of the
coefficient.
And choose k times delta to k times I to
the n minus k.
These binomial coefficients
you recall, comes from say Pascal's
Triangle or the definition in terms
of Factorials of n and k and n minus k,
and something like that.
Anyhow, let's look a little bit more
carefully.
Recall that the identity operator, I, is
the, do nothing operator.
So we can effectively ignore it and just
look at powers
of the forward difference Delta.

Now, remember, one of the

useful formulate from Discrete Calculus,
is the notion of a falling power.
N to the falling k is n times n minus 1,
times n minus 2, all
the way to n minus k plus 1.
But this is related to
the binomial coefficient as follows, n to
the falling k
can be expressed as n choose k times k
factorial.
Now that means that we could rewrite E to
the n
as the sum, k goes from 0 to n of n to the
falling k,
divided by k factorial, times delta to the
k.
And at this point, if you've been paying
attention in this class, you see
something that looks slightly familiar.
If we take a
sequence, a, and we consider the nth term,
a sub n, this is really
the shift E to the N applied to a,
evaluated at
0 at the initial slot.
That means that we can express a sub ,
as the sum k goes from 0 to n on one of
the k factorial, times the kth forward
difference Delta to the k of a.
Evaluated at 0, times n to the falling k.
This is Newton's formula in slightly a
different language, than
you'll find it in most books, but in the
language of Discrete Calculus.
A language that makes you see immediately
the
relationship to Taylor Series.
Indeed Newton's
formula is the descriptive calculus
version of our classical formula
for the Taylor Series of F at X.
Let's look at the
similarities, in both cases, we have a one
over k factorial and
we have in the discreet version the kth
forward difference of a evaluated at zero.
In the smooth version we have the kth
derivative of f, evaluated at zero.
These look a little bit closer.
If we replace that kth
derivative of f by the kth power of the
differentiation operator,
capital D applied to f, and then evaluate
it at zero.
Whereas in the smooth case, we have x to
the k, in the discrete case,
we have the discrete version of this
monomial, that is, n to the falling k.
This beautiful and fearful symmetry

between the notion of a Taylor Series for

Discrete and Continuous Calculus
is one of the gems in this course.
If you don't mind, I would like to make a
few observations, here at the very end.
Recall the shift operator E, applied to a
sequence a, and evaluated
at the nth term.
Is really just a sub n plus one, and in
operator language, it can be expressed as
I plus Delta.
There's a corresponding shift operator in
the continuous world as well.
E applied to a function f and evaluated at
x is simply f at x plus 1.
Now, way back when, we argued using Taylor
Series, that the shift operator, in the
smooth world, is really the exponentiation
of the differentiation operator.
That is, E is I plus D plus 1 over 2
factorial times D squared, plus 1 over 3
factorial D cubed, etcetera.
And seeing the relationship between the
smooth and the discrete
versions of a shift lead us to a few
interesting observations.
First of all, from the observation that
the shift operator is the exponentiation
of the differentiation operator.
We can express the discrete derivative,
the forward difference delta as e to the D
minus I.
This gives us an explicit connection
between the notions of differentiation
in the discrete and the continuous world.
Lastly, we could say that
differentiation D is really the natural
log
of the shift operator.
Or, if you like, the natural log of the
identity plus the forward discrete
difference delta.
Those are all beautiful observations, and
all are connected to this simple
initial question which with we began, what
is e to the x?
By now, you have seen so many answers
to that question from so many different
perspectives.
But you haven't seen it all Indeed, there
is much more to Mathematics than just
Calculus.
Even the type of calculus that you have
seen in this course.
I hope that this course has been for you
more than a bag
of tricks, or formulae written into boxes.
I hope
that you have seen the beauty and the
wonder that is implicit

both in the world around us, and the

mathematics that we use to model it.
I hope that this course has been for you
More than
just a few video lectures in which to up
your skill set.
Pay attention to the things around you, go
deeper.
Maybe, take a few more math classes to see
more of what's out there.
It has been my privilege and pleasure to
be your professor this term.