qukolhavi

I recently reread my undergrad Calculus book and read in the section on Taylor series that Taylor polynomials are used in programming languages to approximate trigonometric functions. I have a few questions: Are Taylor polynomials actually used or is there a better method? (Skepsis comes from the number of divisions in these polynomials although I guess you could precompute most) If yes, then of which degree is the polynomial? How do you measure the approximation error compared to the real function? I can imagine that an approximation can be compared to one that is even more precise due to a higher degree. But that comparison would be between two approximations.