What is the Taylor series for i^i?

Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
2 replies · 3K views
Khan
I'm having some problems expanding i^i, could anyone help? I know it becomes a real number somehow, and I'm familiar with the e^(i * pi) expansion, but is the i^i done in the same way?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
There is a well known expansion for a^x:

a^x=SUM[((alnx)^n)/(n!)]

Just replace a and x with i.

At first glance, it doesn't look real to me, but maybe the sum telescopes.

Njorl
 
Hello, Khan!

I'm not sure what you mean by expanding ii,
since it is already a constant.

Using DeMoivre's Theorem (Euler's?): eix = cos x + i sin x,
when x = pi/2, we have: ei*pi/2 = cos(pi/2) + i sin(pi/2) = i

Raise both sides to the power i: ii = (ei*pi/2)i= e-pi/2 = 0.207879576...