thesaruman
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Homework Statement
Exercise 5.6.24 from Arfken's Essential Mathematical Methods for Physicists. You have a function tabulated at equally spaced values of the argument:
\left\{ \begin{array}{c}<br /> y_n=y(x_n)\\x_n = x+nh \end{array}\right.
Show that the linear combination
\frac{1}{12h}\left\{ -y_2+8y_1-8y_{-1}+y_{-2} \right\}
yields
y'_0-\frac{h^4}{30}y^{(5)}_0+\cdots .
Homework Equations
I used:
\frac{d^ny_0}{dx^n}=\sum_{m=0}^n(-1)^n\left( \begin{array}{c}<br /> n\\ m \end{array} \right)y_{\frac{n}{2}-m} for the derivatives of an even order and a geometric average between the backward and forward derivatives for the odd ones.
Keep in mind that y(x)=y_0, y(x+h)=y_1,...
Also used the Taylor expansion of y(x+h):
f(x+h)=\sum_{m=0}^\infty \frac{h^n}{n!}f^{(n)}(x).
3. The Attempt at a Solution
I solved the Taylor expansion for y'_0 and tried to modify the result accordingly with the equation the author expressed. But there was no way to get it fit. I guess I didn't understand how the author calculates the derivative of the function.
Please, someone help. I am getting crazy with the exercises of this book.