[bee_rider]

Taylor series makes a lot more sense in a math class, right? It is straightforward and (just for example), when you are thinking about whether or not a series converges in the limit, why care about the quality of the approximation after a set number of steps?

[xyzzyz]

Not quite. The point of Taylor’s theorem is that the n-th degree Taylor polynomial around a is the best n-th degree polynomial approximation around a. However, it doesn’t say anything about how good of an approximation it is further away from the point a. In fact, in math, when you use Taylor approximation, you don’t usually care about the infinite Taylor series, only the finite component.

[davrosthedalek]

Taylor series have a quite different convergence behavior than a general polynomial approximation. Or polynomial fit for that matter. Many papers were written which confuse this.

For example, 1/(x+2) has a pole at x=-2. The Taylor series around 0 will thus not converge for |x|>2. A polynomial approximation for, say, a range 0<x<L, will for all L.