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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.
Taylor series are used to define functions and "operators" in diverse areas of mathematics. In particular, this is true in areas where the classical definitions of functions break down. For example, using Taylor series, one may extend analytic functions to sets of matrices and operators, such as the matrix exponential or matrix logarithm.
The linear approximation of a function is the first order Taylor expansion around the point of interest. In the study of dynamical systems, linearization is a method for assessing the local stability of an equilibrium point of a system of nonlinear differential equations or discrete dynamical systems. [1]
In mathematics, a linear approximation is an approximation of a general function using a linear function (more precisely, an affine function). They are widely used in the method of finite differences to produce first order methods for solving or approximating solutions to equations.
For example, the second-order equation y′′ = −y can be rewritten as two first-order equations: y′ = z and z′ = −y. In this section, we describe numerical methods for IVPs, and remark that boundary value problems (BVPs) require a different set of tools. In a BVP, one defines values, or components of the solution y at more than one ...
Affine arithmetic is meant to be an improvement on interval arithmetic (IA), and is similar to generalized interval arithmetic, first-order Taylor arithmetic, the center-slope model, and ellipsoid calculus — in the sense that it is an automatic method to derive first-order guaranteed approximations to general formulas.
In the zeroth-order example above, the quantity "a few" was given, but in the first-order example, the number "4" is given. A first-order approximation of a function (that is, mathematically determining a formula to fit multiple data points) will be a linear approximation, straight line with a slope: a polynomial of degree 1. For example:
To use a finite difference method to approximate the solution to a problem, one must first discretize the problem's domain. This is usually done by dividing the domain into a uniform grid (see image). This means that finite-difference methods produce sets of discrete numerical approximations to the derivative, often in a "time-stepping" manner.