Education Technology


Taylor Polynomials

Activity Overview

The modulus and argument form of a complex number can be written in two ways, but how are they connected? ‘CIS’ format is a straight forward application of trigonometry, but what about e ? In this activity students explore the Taylor expansion of ex and compare it with the Taylor expansion of cos(x) + sin(x) revealing a small difference relating to an alternating sequence of negative signs which can be adjusted using i. The activity removes the mystery and replaces it with a beautifully connected piece of mathematics