Classroom Tips and Techniques: Series Expansions

Robert J . Lopez
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Maple Fellow
Maplesoft

Introduction

Maple has the ability to provide various series expansions and their truncations, as well as
complete formal series for a variety of elementary and special functions. In this month's article,
we examine the relevant commands and interface devices that access these functionalities.

The Series Construct

In Maple, the output of the taylor command appears to be a polynomial to which a "big Oh"
term has been attached. The series command produces a generalized series expansion that could
be a Taylor or Laurent series, or a more general series. In particular, the results of these
commands can be seen in Table 1.










Table 1 Application of taylor and series commands to



In Table 1, the output of the taylor command is not just a polynomial to which has been
added. It is a special series construct that can be converted to a polynomial with the convert
command, as in




The default value of the Order variable in Maple is 6. It can be changed by assigning it another
integer value. However, it can also be temporarily (i.e., locally) changed inside either of the
taylor or series commands by simply including an integer as a third argument. For example,
Order can be set temporarily to 7 as follows.




This output suggests that care should be taken in interpreting the "big Oh" term produced by
these commands. The outputs in Table 1 are technically correct in that they indicate the
remainder term is "big Oh" of to the power of Order. In fact, the remainder terms in Table 1
are , that is, "little oh" of . Thus, the commands in Table 1 do not produce the tight
bound that would apply if some form of the remainder were analytically examined for its
true order.

The situation is further compounded by the Maple "remember table," an internal table that stores
certain calculations to reduce the time it takes to access the calculation again. We see the effect
of this table in the following calculation.




The second time the command is called with the default value of Order, namely, six, the
remember table comes into play, and now, Maple indicates that the remainder term is .
The contents of the remember table can be emptied with the forget command, as in





Thus, it is useful to think in terms of "series order" as an integer that Maple uses to keep track of
the truncation of a series, and it is not necessarily the precise analytic order of the remainder
term. Moreover, it is clearly not the degree of the truncated polynomial obtained after
converting to a polynomial. It is unfortunate that Maple uses "order" in many places where
"degree" would be the more appropriate term or construct.

When the output of the series command contains fractional exponents, it is not the special series
construct, but rather, an expression in the form of a sum of products to which the "big Oh" term
has been added. The "big Oh" term can be removed by the same convert option that works for
the output of the taylor command.

Interfaces to the taylor and series Commands

The series command can be accessed directly, as in Table 1, or from the Context Menu. The
taylor command can be accessed directly, as in Table 1, from several Task Templates, or from
the TaylorApproximation command in the Student Calculus 1 package.

Figure 1 shows the dialog that results from selecting SeriesSeries from the Context Menu
applied to an expression such as or , the BesselJ function of index .



Figure 1 Series option in the Context Menu


The term "Series order" is the value that will be assigned to the Order option or variable. If the
"Truncate to polynomial" checkbox is checked, a polynomial of degree at least one less than
"Series order" will result.

Figure 2 shows the Taylor Approximation tutor with its default settings. The default function is
and the default "series order" is four. The TaylorApproximation command shown at the
bottom of the tutor provides a Taylor polynomial as an approximation to the input function, but
Maple declares this polynomial approximation to be of "order," that is, of "series order," rather
than of "degree." The TaylorApproximation command is merely an interface to the underlying
taylor command.



Figure 2 Taylor Approximation tutor accessing the TaylorApproximation command



Table 2 provides the path to a Task Template that invokes the TaylorApproximation command
and/or launches the Taylor Approximation tutor. The syntax for implementing the
TaylorApproximation command is provided by this Task Template. Note that the local setting
of the Order variable must be done in the form of an equation whose left-hand side is the word
"order." As in Figure 2, "order" means the degree of the resulting polynomial, a usage that
conflicts with that of the underlying taylor command.

ToolsTasksBrowse: Calculus Taylor Approximation of a Univariate Function

Taylor Approximation
Calculate the Taylor approximation of a specified degree for a univariate function.

Enter the function as an expression.

>

Specify the order, and then calculate the Taylor approximation.

>

Alternatively, you can use the Taylor Approximation tutor, a point-and-click interface. There
are two ways to launch this tutor.
From the Tools menu, select Tutors, Calculus - Single Variable, and then Taylor
Approximation.
Enter the function in one variable to be approximated below, then click the following
Taylor Approximation button.

>

>

Table 2 The Task Template "Taylor Approximation of a Univariate Function



Pressing the "Taylor Approximation" button will launch the Taylor Approximation tutor
pre-loaded with the function in the box to the right of the button. Alternatively, if the Student
Calculus 1 package is first loaded into Maple's memory, the Context Menu for an expression will
contain the option "Tutors" from which the Taylor Approximation tutor can be selected. This
would be more direct than accessing the tutor from the Task Template.

Table 3 provides the path to a Task Template that invokes the taylor command and provides an
interactive tool for obtaining Taylor expansions and polynomials. It is possible to access just
this tool, which in turn provides access to the Taylor Approximation tutor.

ToolsTasksBrowse: CalculusTaylor Expansion and Polynomials

Taylor Polynomial for a Univariate Function

Calculate the Taylor expansion for a univariate function about a specified point and up to a
specific order.

Enter the function as an expression:

>


Specify an expansion point and an expansion order, and then calculate the Taylor series:

>

>

Alternatively, you can use the following interface to calculate the Taylor expansion and Taylor
polynomial:

Taylor Expansions and Polynomials

Enter the function:



Degree: Base-Point:










Table 3 The "Taylor Expansion and Polynomials" Task Template



For both the series expansion and the Taylor polynomial, the degree of the polynomial is
governed by the "Degree" option. If no base-point is provided, the tool assumes .
Launching the tutor from this tool loads the function and the base-point, but not the desired
degree. Closing the tutor places its graph into the graphing window of the tool.


Laurent Series

The Laurent series can be obtained with the series command, or with the laurent
command from the numapprox package. Usage is illustrated in Table 4.









Table 4 The Laurent series via the series and laurent commands



Asymptotic Series

Asymptotic power series, even series with fractional powers, can be obtained in any of the four
ways listed in Table 5.

>

>

>

>

Table 5 Asymptotic power series


From Table 5 we see that the series, taylor, and asympt commands can all be used to generate
asymptotic power series, even series with fractional powers. The asympt command assumes
that the expansion point is the point at infinity. Both the taylor and series commands need to be
told that the expansion point is at infinity. It is even possible to obtain an asymptotic expansion
by changing variables so , expanding about , and restoring via .

An asymptotic power series, even one with fractional powers, is available through the Context
Menu, under the option SeriesAsymptotic Series . The resulting dialog, shown in Figure 3,
suggests it is possible to obtain an asymptotic power series interactively, either as a series
construct or as a truncated expansion.



Figure 3 Dialog for Context Menu
option: SeriesAsymptotic Series



Unfortunately, Maple does not have a function for generating an asymptotic series with respect
to an arbitrary asymptotic basis. However, if is an asymptotic sequence as
, then the coefficients in the expansion



can be obtained recursively via



Multivariate Series

The mtaylor command is used to generate a Taylor polynomial for a multivariate function. For
example, the Taylor expansion of , taken about , would be of the form



Table 6 contains the expansion of at the point .

>

Table 6 Multivariate Taylor expansion of



Even though Maple does not have a series construct for the multivariate case, the notion of
"series order" is used to determine the degree of the resulting polynomial. Unfortunately, this
results in a polynomial of total degree one less than the "series order" used as a parameter in the
mtaylor command.

Because there is no "series construct" for the multivariate case, Maple does not tack on an order
term for expansions generated by the mtaylor command. Because of this, I can recall that
colleagues at RHIT would teach their students only about the mtaylor command, even in
single-variable calculus. This would avoid the need to follow up with the "convert-to-polynom"
step, thereby lessening the syntax burden in the days when all Maple calculations were
dependent on knowing the appropriate commands.

Interfaces to the mtaylor Command

Figure 4 shows the Taylor Approximation tutor from the Student Multivariate Calculus package.


Figure 4 Multivariate Calculus Taylor Approximation tutor



The first-degree Taylor polynomial for the function , taken at is
obtained in Figure 4. In addition, a graph of the function and the Taylor polynomial is drawn.
The graph of the first-degree Taylor polynomial is the graph of the tangent plane. At the bottom
of the tutor, the TaylorApproximation command can be seen. The syntax of this command
contrasts to that of the mtaylor command and to the similarly named command from the
Calculus 1 package. Note in particular how the expansion point is expressed, and note that the
explicit use of the equation "order =1" is not required. In the absence of the "output =plot"
parameter, the expression for the Taylor polynomial would be returned.

Finally, note that both the command and the tutor use "Order" to mean "degree." Given that
there is no "series construct" in the multivariate case, and given that both the command and the
tutor specifically reference "Approximation," it's striking that the notion of "series order" is used,
and used where "degree" would be more appropriate.

Table 7 shows the path to a Task Template that provides access to the Taylor Approximation
command and tutor.

ToolsTasksBrowse: Multivariate CalculusTaylor Approximation of a Multivariate Function

Taylor Approximation of a Multivariate Function
Calculate the Taylor approximation of a specified degree for a multivariate function.

Enter the function.

>

Specify an expansion point and order, and then calculate the Taylor approximation.

>

>
Alternatively, you can use the Taylor Series tutor, a point-and-click interface. There are two
ways to launch this tutor.
From the Tools menu, select Tutors, Calculus - Multi-Variable and then Taylor
Series.
Enter a multivariate function below, then click the following Taylor Series button.

>

>
Table 7 The Task Template "Taylor Approximation of a Multivariate Function"


Again, if the Student Multivariate Calculus package is loaded, the Context Menu for an
expression will contain the option "Tutors," from which the Taylor Approximation tutor can be
selected. This proves to be a more efficient connection to the tutor than the Task Template.

Formal Power Series

Maple has two separate processes for producing the complete formal power series for .
Each is accessed as an option to the convert command, but even though it looks like there is a
common interface, the underlying approaches to obtaining the formal power series are different.
In most cases, either process will work, but there are functions for which just one will succeed in
finding the desired series. Table 8 illustrates the two relevant functionalities.






Table 8 Obtaining complete formal power series in Maple



It should be obvious from Table 8 that two different functionalities have been activated. In the
result on the right, the summation index can be declared by the user, as we show in the following
calculation.




The Context Menu provides the option SeriesFormal Power Series. The dialog that appears in
shown in Figure 5.



Figure 5 Dialog for the Context Menu option:
SeriesFormal Power Series



From Figure 5, it should be clear that even from the Context Menu it is possible to declare the
summation index in the formal power series returned.

Finally, note that one can obtain a complete formal asymptotic power series, as illustrated in
Table 9.




Table 9 Complete formal asymptotic power series




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