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What is the point in the Taylor Series expansion?

I understand how to use the Taylor (and Maclaurin) Series, but I don't understand what the point in using it in the first place is...

So it is used to approximate the value of a function at x = a ...

but hey, instead of doing all that working out and just approximating the function value at a, I could just do f(a) instead, and then I'm directly lead to the right answer, it's not even an approximation! :O

Why would you use the Taylor Series in a real life situation instead of just doing f(a)?

Reply 1

House Dagoth

Funny, my teacher was teaching my about Taylor Series today too!

He told me that calculators use the taylor (maclaurin) expansion to evaluate funtions such as: sinx, cosx, e^x.

He's a comp sci grad from Imperial so I'm pretty sure he knows what he's talking about. :biggrin: