Dear Maxima list readers,
We have a problem with Maxima, it is that we would like to get the truncated
Taylor series of an arbitrary function, but if there isn't such, then we
would like to know that. For example, there isn't a Taylor series of cot(x),
but in this case Maxima gives the Laurent series of cot(x), and we cannot
distinguish between the Taylor and the Laurent series. There is a taylorp
function in Maxima, but it doesn't work.
(%i7) string(taylor(cot(x),x,0,5));
(%o7) 1/x-x/3-x^3/45-2*x^5/945
(%i8) string(taylorp(taylor(cot(x),x,0,5)));
(%o8) true
This is important because we don't know the function which will be the
input, because it will be given later. We prefer a simpler solution that
writing a new Maxima program for the Taylor series.
Best regards,
Arpad Fekete