Recursive algorithm for cos taylor series expansion c++ - c++

Question

I recently wrote a Computer Science exam where they asked us to give a recursive definition for the cos taylor series expansion. This is the series
cos(x) = 1 - x^2/2! + x^4/4! + x^6/6! ...
and the function signature looks as follows
float cos(int n , float x)
where n represents the number in the series the user would like to calculate till and x represents the value of x in the cos function
I obviously did not get that question correct and I have been trying to figure it out for the past few days but I have hit a brick wall
Would anyone be able to help out getting me started somewhere ?

Answer 1

All answers so far recompute the factorial every time. I surely wouldn't do that. Instead you can write :
float cos(int n, float x)
{
if (n > MAX)
return 1;
return 1 - x*x / ((2 * n - 1) * (2 * n)) * cos(n + 1, x);
}
Consider that cos returns the following (sorry for the dots position) :
You can see that this is true for n>MAX, n=MAX, and so on. The sign alternating and powers of x are easy to see.
Finally, at n=1 you get 0! = 1, so calling cos(1, x) gets you the first MAX terms of the Taylor expansion of cos.
By developing (easier to see when it has few terms), you can see the first formula is equivalent to the following :
For n > 0, you do in cos(n-1, x) a division by (2n-3)(2n-2) of the previous result, and a multiplication by x². You can see that when n=MAX+1 this formula is 1, with n=MAX then it is 1-x²/((2MAX-1)2MAX) and so on.
If you allow yourself helper functions, then you should change the signature of the above to float cos_helper(int n, float x, int MAX) and call it like so :
float cos(int n, float x) { return cos_helper(1, x, n); }
Edit : To reverse the meaning of n from degree of the evaluated term (as in this answer so far) to number of terms (as in the question, and below), but still not recompute the total factorial every time, I would suggest using a two-term relation.
Let us define trivially cos(0,x) = 0 and cos(1,x) = 1, and try to achieve generally cos(n,x) the sum of the n first terms of the Taylor series.
Then for each n > 0, we can write, cos(n,x) from cos(n-1,x) :
cos(n,x) = cos(n-1,x) + x2n / (2n)!
now for n > 1, we try to make the last term of cos(n-1,x) appear (because it is the closest term to the one we want to add) :
cos(n,x) = cos(n-1,x) + x² / ((2n-1)2n) * ( x2n-2 / (2n-2)! )
By combining this formula with the previous one (adapting it to n-1 instead of n) :
cos(n,x) = cos(n-1,x) + x² / ((2n-1)2n) * ( cos(n-1,x) - cos(n-2,x) )
We now have a purely recursive definition of cos(n,x), without helper function, without recomputing the factorial, and with n the number of terms in the sum of the Taylor decomposition.
However, I must stress that the following code will perform terribly :
performance wise, unless some optimization allows to not re-evaluate a cos(n-1,x) that was evaluated at the previous step as cos( (n-1) - 1, x)
precision wise, because of cancellation effects : the precision with which we get x2n-2 / (2n-2)! is very bad
Now this disclaimer is in place, here comes the code :
float cos(int n, float x)
{
if (n < 2)
return n;
float c = x * x / (2 * (n - 1) * 2 * n);
return (1-c) * cos(n-1, x) + c * cos(n-2, x);
}

Answer 2

cos(x)=1 - x^2/2! + x^4/4! - x^6/6! + x^8/8!.....
=1-x^2/2 (1 - x^2/3*4 + x^4/3*4*5*6 -x^6/3*4*5*6*7*8)
=1 - x^2/2 {1- x^2/3*4 (1- x^2/5*6 + x^4/5*6*7*8)}
=1 - x^2/2 [1- x^2/3*4 {1- x^2/5*6 ( 1- x^2/7*8)}]
double cos_series_recursion(double x, int n, double r=1){
if(n>0){
r=1-((x*x*r)/(n*(n-1)));
return cos_series_recursion(x,n-2,r);
}else return r;
}

Answer 3

A simple approach that makes use of static variables:
double cos(double x, int n) {
static double p = 1, f = 1;
double r;
if(n == 0)
return 1;
r = cos(x, n-1);
p = (p*x)*x;
f = f*(2*n-1)*2*n;
if(n%2==0) {
return r+p/f;
} else {
return r-p/f;
}
}
Notice that I'm multiplying 2*n in the operation to get the next factorial.
Having n align to the factorial we need makes this easy to do in 2 operations: f = f * (n - 1) then f = f * n.
when n = 1, we need 2!
when n = 2, we need 4!
when n = 3, we need 6!
So we can safely double n and work from there. We could write:
n = 2*n;
f = f*(n-1);
f = f*n;
If we did this, we would need to update our even/odd check to if((n/2)%2==0) since we're doubling the value of n.
This can instead be written as f = f*(2*n-1)*2*n; and now we don't have to divide n when checking if it's even/odd, since n is not being altered.

Answer 4

You can use a loop or recursion, but I would recommend a loop. Anyway, if you must use recursion you could use something like the code below
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int fact(int n) {
if (n <= 1) return 1;
else return n*fact(n-1);
}
float Cos(int n, float x) {
if (n == 0) return 1;
return Cos(n-1, x) + (n%2 ? -1 : 1) * pow (x, 2*n) / (fact(2*n));
}
int main()
{
cout << Cos(6, 3.14/6);
}

Answer 5

Just do it like the sum.
The parameter n in float cos(int n , float x) is the l and now just do it...
Some pseudocode:
float cos(int n , float x)
{
//the sum-part
float sum = pow(-1, n) * (pow(x, 2*n))/faculty(2*n);
if(n <= /*Some predefined maximum*/)
return sum + cos(n + 1, x);
return sum;
}

Answer 6

The usual technique when you want to recurse but the function arguments don't carry the information that you need, is to introduce a helper function to do the recursion.
I have the impression that in the Lisp world the convention is to name such a function something-aux (short for auxiliary), but that may have been just a limited group in the old days.
Anyway, the main problem here is that n represents the natural ending point for the recursion, the base case, and that you then also need some index that works itself up to n. So, that's one good candidate for extra argument for the auxiliary function. Another candidate stems from considering how one term of the series relates to the previous one.