MATH 1231 MATHEMATICS 1B 2010.

For use in Dr Chris Tisdells lectures.

Calculus Section 4.4: Taylor & Power series.

1. What is a Taylor series?
2. Convergence of Taylor series
3. Common Maclaurin series
4. Applications
5. What is a power series?
6. Motivation
7. Radius of convergence
8. Manipulation of power series

Lecture notes created by Chris Tisdell. All images are from Thomas Calculus by Wier, Hass and Giordano, Pearson, 2008; and Calculus by Rogowski,
W H Freeman & Co., 2008.
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1. What is a Taylor series?

We now extend the idea of Taylor polynomials to Taylor series.
In particular, we can now fulfil our aim of developing a method for representing
a (differentiable) function f (x) as an (infinite) sum of powers of x. The main
thoughtprocess behind our method is that powers of x are easy to evaluate,
differentiate and integrate, so by rewriting complicated functions as sums of
powers of x we can greatly simplify our analysis.

Colin Maclaurin was a professor of mathematics at Edinburgh university. Newton was so impressed by Maclaurins work that he offered to pay part
of Maclaurins salary.
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Ex. Find the Maclaurin series for sin x.

Ex. Find the Maclaurin series for cos x.

Ex. Find the Maclaurin series for log(1 + x).

What happens if we try to find the Maclaurin series for

log x in powers of x?
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Ex. Find the Taylor series for the function log x about
the point x = 1.

2. Convergence.
Recall from the theory of Taylor polynomials that Rk (x),
the remainder of order k, between a function f (x) and
its Taylor polynomial Pk (x) of order k is just
Rk (x) = f (x) Pk (x).
Since
P (x) :=

X
f (n)(a)
n=0

n!

(x a)n

is the limit of the partial sums Pk (x) we see that the

Taylor series converges to f (x) if and only if
(1)

lim Rk (x) = 0.
k

The following theorem gives us a method of determining when (1) holds.

Ex: Find the Taylor series for the function cos x about
the point x = 2 , (i.e. in powers of (x 2 ).) On what
interval does the Taylor series converge to cos x?

3. Common Maclaurin series.

4. Applications.
This section contains some nice applications of Taylor
series. We look at limits with indeterminate forms.
x.
Ex. Evaluate limx0 sin
x

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We now move onto definite integrals where the integrand does not have an explicit antiderivative.
Ex. Express I := 01 sin(x2) dx as an infinite series.
R

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5. What is a power series?

We have already seen two special power series:

the Maclaurin series for a given function f (x) is a
power series about x = 0 with
f (n)(0)
an =
n!
in (1);
the Taylor series for a given function f (x) about x = a
is a power series about x = a with
f (n)(c)
an =
n!
in (2).
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6. Motivation
Similar to polynomials, convergent power series can
be added, subtracted, multiplied, differentiated and integrated to form new power series.
Consider the function
F (x) =

X
n=0

bnxn =

X
1 n
x .
n
n=0 2

For what values of x does the above series converge?

That is, what is the domain of F ?
It is clear that F (0) is defined, since substitution into the series
gives
F (0) = 1 + 0 + 0 + . . . = 1.
What about F (1)? Substitution into the series yields

X
1
F (1) =
= 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + . . . = 2.
n
2
n=0

What about F (3)? We see

X
1 n
F (3) =
3
n
2
n=0

which is a geometric series that diverges. Thus, F (3) is not

defined.

Can we determine all values of x without substitution??

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7. Radius of convergence.

To determine the radius of convergence, we can employ the ratio test from our earlier work on infinite series.

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Let us return to our previous example of

X
1 n
F (x) =
x .
n
n=0
n=0 2
We compute the following ratio , applying the ratio test


 bn+1xn+1 

= lim 

n
n
bnx
 n+1   n 
 2 
x

= lim  n+1   n 
n 2
x
1
=
lim |x|
2 n
1
=
|x|.
2
By the ratio test, our series will converge when = |x|/2 < 1.

bnxn =

That is, when |x| < 2. Similarly, our series will diverge when
> 1, that is, when |x| > 2.
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Ex. Discuss the convergence of the power series

F (x) =

X
xn
n=0 n!

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Ex. Discuss the convergence of

F (x) =

X
(1)n
n=1

(x 5)n.

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Ex. Discuss the convergence of

F (x) =

nxn.

n=1

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8. Manipulation of power series.

The following theorems state that a power series F (x) can be
differentiated and integrated within its interval of convergence.
We may differentiate and integrate F (x) as if it were a polynomial.

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Ex: Establish a power series for log(1 + x), 1 <

x < 1 by using the power series

tn,

1 < t < 1.

n=0

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