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The sine function (blue) is closely approximated by its Taylor polynomial of degree 7 (pink) for a full period centered at the origin. The Taylor polynomials for ln(1 + x) only provide accurate approximations in the range −1 < x ≤ 1. For x > 1, Taylor polynomials of higher degree provide worse approximations.
In calculus, Taylor's theorem gives an approximation of a -times differentiable function around a given point by a polynomial of degree , called the -th-order Taylor polynomial. For a smooth function , the Taylor polynomial is the truncation at the order k {\textstyle k} of the Taylor series of the function.
The objective is to make the approximation as close as possible to the actual function, typically with an accuracy close to that of the underlying computer's floating point arithmetic. This is accomplished by using a polynomial of high degree, and/or narrowing the domain over which the polynomial has to approximate the function. Narrowing the ...
The approximating functors are required to be "k-excisive" – such functors are called polynomial functors by analogy with Taylor polynomials – which is a simplifying condition, and roughly means that they are determined by their behavior around k points at a time, or more formally are sheaves on the configuration space of k points in the ...
In this approximation, trigonometric functions can be expressed as linear functions of the angles. Gaussian optics applies to systems in which all the optical surfaces are either flat or are portions of a sphere. In this case, simple explicit formulae can be given for parameters of an imaging system such as focal distance, magnification and ...
Polynomial interpolation also forms the basis for algorithms in numerical quadrature (Simpson's rule) and numerical ordinary differential equations (multigrid methods). In computer graphics, polynomials can be used to approximate complicated plane curves given a few specified points, for example the shapes of letters in typography.
Several progressively more accurate approximations of the step function. An asymmetrical Gaussian function fit to a noisy curve using regression.. In general, a function approximation problem asks us to select a function among a well-defined class [citation needed] [clarification needed] that closely matches ("approximates") a target function [citation needed] in a task-specific way.
In probability theory, it is possible to approximate the moments of a function f of a random variable X using Taylor expansions, provided that f is sufficiently differentiable and that the moments of X are finite. A simulation-based alternative to this approximation is the application of Monte Carlo simulations.