What are Small Angle Approximations?
The small angle approximations, as given in the Edexcel Formula Booklet, are:
These approximations can only be used when is small. Hence why we call them ‘small angle’ approximations. Furthermore, must be measured in radians.
Here we can see each of the trigonometric graphs plotted against their given approximations. We can see from these plots, the values of for which these approximations are good.ย Evidently, and appear to be good approximations for whereas works well for .
What about larger angle values?
Functions can be approximated by polynomials by taking a Taylor Expansion (what is a Taylor Expansion?). These expansions are, of course, dependent on where we are taking the approximation. Recall that for the small angle approximations above, they are only valid for values of around zero. For other ranges, the Taylor approximation will look different. Note that when the Taylor series is taken for values around zero, we call it a Maclaurin series.
It can be shown that the Maclaurin series for and ( isn’t as simple) are given by:
Notice that has only odd powers of whereas has only even powers. As we can see, both expansions have alternating signs and increasing powers of . Hence, the more terms included in the expansion, the larger the range of values the expansion will be a good approximation for. This explains why the small angle approximation for works for a larger range of values – it is quadratic whereas the approximations for and are linear.