The
Order of Approximation
Clearly, the
sequences and are
both converging to zero. In addition, it should be
observed that the first sequence is converging to zero more rapidly
than the second sequence. In the coming modules some
special terminology and notation will be used to describe how rapidly
a sequence is converging.
Definition
1. The
function is
said to be big
Oh of , denoted , if
there exist constants and such
that
whenever .
Example
1. Consider the
functions and . Show
that , over
the interval .
Solution
1.
The
big
Oh notation provides a useful way of
describing the rate of growth of a function in terms of well-known
elementary functions (,
etc.). The rate of
convergence of sequences can be described in a similar
manner.
Definition
2. Let and be
two sequences. The sequenceis
said to be of order big
Oh of,
denoted , if
there exist and N such
that
whenever .
Example
2. Given the sequences
and . Show
that .
Solution
2.
Often a
function is
approximated by a function and
the error bound is known to be . This
leads to the following definition.
Definition
3. Assume
that is
approximated by the function and
that there exist a real constant and
a positive integer n
so that
for
sufficiently small h.
We say that approximates with order of
approximation and write
.
When this
relation is rewritten in the form , we
see that the notation stands
in place of the error bound . The
following results show how to apply the definition to simple
combinations of two functions.
Theorem (Big "O" Remainders for Series
Approximations).
Assume that and , and . Then
(i) ,
(ii) ,
(iii) ,
provided that .
Proof Big
O Truncation Error Big
O Truncation Error
Exploration.
It is instructive
to consider to
be the
degree Taylor polynomial approximation
of ; then
the remainder term is simply designated , which
stands for the presence of omitted terms starting with the
power . The
remainder term converges to zero with the same rapidity
that converges
to zero as h
approaches zero, as expressed in the relationship
for sufficiently small h. Hence
the notation stands
in place of the quantity ,
where M is
a constant or behaves like a constant.
Theorem ( Taylor
polynomial
). Assume that the
function and
its derivatives are
all continuous on . If both and lie
in the interval , and then
,
is the n-th degree Taylor
polynomial expansion of about . The
Taylor polynomial of degree n is
and
.
The integral form of the remainder is
,
and Lagrange's formula for the remainder is
where
depends on
and lies somewhere between .
Proof Big
O Truncation Error Big
O Truncation Error
Exploration.
Example
3. Consider and
the Taylor polynomials of degree expanded
about .
Solution
3.
The following
example illustrates the theorems above. The computations
use the addition properties
(i) ,
(ii) where ,
(iii) where .
Example 4. First
find Maclaurin expansions for and of
order and , respectively.
Then experiment and find the order of approximation for their sum,
product and quotient.
Solution
4.
Example 5. First
find Maclaurin expansions for and of
order and , respectively.
Then experiment and find the order of approximation for their sum,
product and quotient.
Solution
5.
Order of Convergence of
a Sequence
Numerical approximations are often arrived at
by computing a sequence of approximations that get closer and closer
to the answer desired. The definition of big
Oh for sequences was given in
definition 2, and the definition of order of convergence for a
sequence is analogous to that given for functions in Definition
3.
Definition
4. Suppose
that and is
a sequence with . We
say that converges
to x
with the order of convergence , if
there exists a constant such
that
for
n
sufficiently large.
This is indicated by writing
or
with
order of convergence .
Example
6. Let and ; then with
a rate of convergence .
Solution
6.
A Scenarios and Animations
related to this module.
Animations (Taylor
and Maclaurin Polynomial
Approximation Taylor
and Maclaurin Polynomial
Approximation). Internet
hyperlinks to animations.
Research Experience for
Undergraduates
Big
O Truncation Error Big
O Truncation Error Internet hyperlinks to
web sites and a bibliography of articles.
Download this Mathematica
Notebook Big
O Truncation Error
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