Don't understand the taylor expansion?

[Lengalicious]

Not sure under which forum this should have gone under, anyway can someone who really understands it explain it to me in as simple terms as they can, from what I'm getting its approximates something for a function or something? No idea.

 

[zhermes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_series
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TaylorSeries.html
http://cinderella.de/files/HTMLDemos/2C02_Taylor.html

 

[mathman]

Not sure under which forum this should have gone under, anyway can someone who really understands it explain it to me in as simple terms as they can, from what I'm getting its approximates something for a function or something? No idea.

It belongs in either general math or calculus. To understand Taylor series you need to understand calculus at least on an elementary level. It is very hard to explain otherwise.

 

[Claude Bile]

A Taylor series basically calculates a bunch of derivatives at some point in a parameter space and then extrapolates them to other points close to the initial point in the space.

The more derivatives you figure out the better you can predict what some function (of which said derivatives are taken) will be at some distance from the initial point.

Claude.