Welcome to Calculus.

I'm Professor Ghrist.

We're about to begin Lecture 5 on
Convergence.
Every epic adventure involves facing some
sort of adversity.
It's time that we confronted a challenge.
Every series involves adding together an
infinite number of terms.
This is dangerous.
In this lesson, we'll confront some of
technicalities associated with adding up
an infinite number of terms.
We'll find that along the way we
encounter series that are not only novel,
but extremely useful.
There is clearly a problem with the
principle that every function has a nice
Taylor series about 0.
It's simply not true.
If we look at a function such as log of
x, then of course, this function is not
even defined at x equals 0.
There's no way that this can be true.
One of the reasons behind this is that
polynomials are simply too nice or simple
to capture all of the complexities of
functions that we see.
Another problem is it is dangerous to add
together an infinite number of terms.
One must be careful.
Let's look at an example where adding
together an infinite number of terms can
lead to something good.
Consider the sum 1 plus 1 half plus 1
half squared plus 1 half cubed, et
cetera.
The sum k goes from 0 to infinity of 1
half to the k.
As you may be able to guess, from
geometry if nothing else, this sum
converges and converges quite simply to
the number 2.
This is an example of something called a
geometric series.
You may have seen it before.
The more general version of the geometric
series Is 1 plus x, plus x squared, plus
x cubed et cetera.
The sum k goes from 0 to infinity of x to
the k.
The geometric series says that this
equals 1 over 1 minus x, so that for
example, if x equals 1 half, this sum
converges to 2.
How would you how would you prove
something like this even for values for x
not equal to 1 half?
Well, let's see.

Let us take this infinite sum and call it

y.
If we multiply this by x, then we obtain
x plus x squared plus x cubed, et cetera.
If we were to subtract that from our
original series y, then we see that
everything cancels except for the first
term.
So that y minus x times y equals 1.
Factoring and solving for y gives that y
equals 1 over 1 minus x.
That is clear as far as an algebraic
manipulation.
But does this actually work?
Does it make sense?
What happens if we plug in x equals 1?
Then we get 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus
1.
Clearly that is not a finite number.
And 1 over 1 minus 1 doesn't even make
any sense.
That is undefined.
Well, this derivation only holds for
values of x less than 1 in absolute
value, otherwise, this infinite series
does not converge.
Let's take a look at what happens at the
other extreme.
What if x equals minus 1?
Is there really a problem here?
Well, we would be asking for the sum 1
minus 1, plus 1, minus 1, et cetera.
Maybe this does have a well-defined
answer.
If we paired up the terms, 1 minus 1 plus
1 minus 1, then we would seem to get 0,
what's wrong with that?
Well, if you could do that, then why not
pair the terms a bit differently?
And take 1 minus 0 minus 0 minus 0, so
that the sum would be equal to 1.
If you're not sure which of these is
correct, perhaps, the best thing to do is
to take the average, split the
difference, and declare it to be 1 half.
This is, after all, what one would obtain
by plugging in a value of negative 1 into
the expression 1 over 1 minus x.
Well, as you might guess, none of these
is correct.
This series does not converge.
The value of x equals minus 1 or for any
value of x that is not less than 1 in
absolute value.
The moral of the story is that this and
other Taylor series possess a convergence
domain, on which the series is
well-defined and well-behaved.
Now, for many of the Taylor series that
we've encountered thus far, the domain of

convergence is the entire real line for

the exponential function, sine, cosine,
hyperbolic sine, hyperbolic cosine.
There are no convergence issues.
It is for series like the geometric
series that we have to be more careful.
Now, within the domain of convergence,
you can manipulate the series at will.
You can rearrange the terms.
Differentiate term by term.
Integrate.
Recombine.
Whatever you wish.
There are no problems, as long as you are
within the interior of that domain of
convergence.
You must be very careful about what
happens near the borders.
We'll talk more about that in Chapter 5.
For the moment, I want to focus on what
we can do.
Let's take a look at another example.
Compute the Taylor series of not log of
x, but log of quantity 1 plus x.
Maybe this will be not so bad, since for
small values of x, this function is well
defined.
We could start taking derivatives of this
function.
But manipulating a known series is going
to be a bit easier.
One of the things that you may recall is
that the log of 1 plus x is equal to the
integral of 1 over 1 plus x, dx.
If you remember that, great.
If you don't, don't worry about it.
Accept it as a given and let's move on
from there.
What could we do with that integrand, 1
over 1 plus x?
That is really the geometric series
evaluated at negative x, and so, we could
integrate the sum k goes from 0 to
infinity of negative x to the k with
respect to x.
By rearranging the terms, a thing that we
are allowed to do as long as we are
within the convergence domain, and
pulling out the negative 1 to the k, then
we get the sum, as k goes from 0 to
infinity, of negative 1 to the k, times
the integral of x to the k.
That is x to the k plus 1 or k plus 1 if
we add an arbitrary constant out in
front, well, that's actually not going to
be so bad.
Why?
When x equals 0 we obtain the log of 1
which is 0.
So forget that constant.

And now, we have an answer with a bit of

re-indexing.
As the sum k goes from one to infinity, a
negative 1 to the k plus 1 times x to the
k over k.
That is perhaps more easily remember as x
minus x squared over 2 plus X cubed over
3, et cetera.
Notice there are no factorials here.
This is x to the k over k.
Now are there any problems with this?
Well, since we used the geometric series
in this derivation, we must be careful to
remain within the convergence domain for
this.
x must be less than 1 in absolute value.
This fits well with the principle that
Taylor polynomials approximate well only
on the convergence domain.
If we look at the terms of this series as
an approximation to log of 1 plus x and
we get increasingly something that seems
to fit what the curve is doing.
But only on the domain of convergence as
x goes to negative 1 to 1, that is, we're
looking at values of log from 0 to 2.
Outside of this region these polynomial
curves do not become better and better
approximations.
They in fact become worse and worse.
Let us consider another example, this
time the arctan function, one of the
things that you may recall is that arctan
has as its derivative 1 over 1 plus x
squared.
So, we can integrate this to obtain
arctan.
You will notice also that 1 over 1 plus x
squared can be represented as the
geometric series of negative x squared.
So, that we can integrate the sum of
negative x squared to the k.
k goes from 0 to infinity.
Again, by rearranging terms doing a
little bit of work here.
We see that we get the sum, k goes from 0
to infinity, negative 1 to the k times
the integral of x of 2k.
That is x to the 2k plus 1 over 2k plus
1.
We have to deal with the constant of
integration.
But again, since arctan of 0 equals 0 it
is irrelevant.
We therefore obtain the Taylor series, x
minus x cubed over 3.
Plus x to the 5th over 5, minus x to the
7th over 7, et cetera.
Once again, no factorials in those
denominators.

And once again, it is important that x

remain less than 1 in absolute value in
order for this series to converge,
because we used the geometric series as
its basis.
There is one last series that will be
very helpful to us.
This is the binomial series.
It is the Taylor series for 1 plus x to
the alpha, where alpha is a constant.
The series is 1 plus alpha x plus 1 over
2 factorial times alpha times alpha minus
1 times x squared.
Well, there are lot of other terms here.
Let me say simply that the kth order term
is alpha choose k times x to the k, where
by alpha choose k, I mean a binomial
notation.
This is the number alpha, times alpha
minus 1, times alpha minus 2, all the way
down to alpha minus k plus 1.
Take that product and divide by k
factorial.
For example, if alpha equals 2, then what
does the binomial series give you?
1 plus alpha times x plus 1 half alpha
times alpha minus 1 times x squared and
that simplifies to x squared.
All other terms involve an alpha minus 2
hence the coefficients are 0.
And we obtain, of course, what the Taylor
series for this polynomial must be.
When alpha equals negative 1, we're
really looking at a variation of the
geometric series for 1 over 1 plus x.
This however, holds for all values of
alpha.
For example, if we take alpha equal to 1
half.
So that we're looking at the square root
of 1 plus x.
Then one can evaluate these binomial
coefficients and obtain a Taylor series
for that.
In this case, in particular this is only
going to remain valid for x less than 1
in absolute value.
We now have a full collection of Taylor
series.
Many of these have domains of convergence
that are infinite, e to the x, cosine and
sine, and cosh and sinh.
These are the nicest Taylor series that
you're going to run into in this course.
However, from this lesson, we have
another collection of Taylor series that
are guaranteed to convert only when x is
less than 1 in absolute value.
This is the geometric series.
The series for log of 1 plus x.

The series for arctan and the binomial

series.
These one has to be a bit careful with.
But as long as you are within the domain
of convergence, these wonderful series.
The moral of this lesson is that, so long
as you are within the domain of
convergence, you can do wonderful things.
Check out the bonus material for this
lecture for an additional example.
In our next lesson, we'll consider what
happens when you wish to focus your
attention on some specific location, an
expansion point.