English

Fun With Fourier Series

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2026-04-29 v6

Abstract

By using computers to do experimental manipulations on Fourier series, we construct additional series with interesting properties. We construct several series whose sums remain unchanged when the nthn^{th} term is multiplied by sin(n)/n\sin(n)/n. One example is this classic series for π/4\pi/4: π4=113+1517+=1sin(1)113sin(3)3+15sin(5)517sin(7)7+. \frac{\pi}{4} = 1 - \frac{1}{3} + \frac{1}{5} - \frac{1}{7} + \dots = 1 \cdot \frac{\sin(1)}{1} - \frac{1}{3} \cdot \frac{\sin(3)}{3} + \frac{1}{5} \cdot \frac{\sin(5)}{5} - \frac{1}{7} \cdot \frac{\sin(7)}{7} + \dots . Another example is n=1sin(n)n=n=1(sin(n)n)2=π12. \sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{\sin(n)}{n} = \sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \left(\frac{\sin(n)}{n}\right)^2 = \frac{\pi-1}{2}. This paper also discusses an included Mathematica package that makes it easy to calculate and graph the Fourier series of many types of functions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0806.0150,
  title  = {Fun With Fourier Series},
  author = {Robert Baillie},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0806.0150},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Changes from the June, 2023 version: added Section 12.3 and Equation 12.56. No changes to the code in FS.m

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:46:16.491Z