SECTION 44

LEGENDRE CHAPTER 8
POLYNOMIALS
 Section – 44
Legendre’s Equation is given by:

Where n is a non-negative integer.

Solution for this equation about x =0 was found using
the power series solution in Section 28 and is given by:
Here p = n

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 Section – 44

To find the solution for this equation about x = 1

For the same we change the variable to:

Thus x = 1 correspond to t = 0 and (1) transforms to

This is a hypergeometric equation with a = -n, b=

n+1, c = 1 and has the following solution at t = 0:

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 Section - 44
The nth Legendre polynomial is denoted by Pn(x) and is
defined by

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 Section - 44
• We seek the second solution(y2 = vy1 )by the method
of Section – 16:

• The bracketed expression on the right is an analytic

function of the form 1+a1t+a2t2+….., and so we get

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 Section - 44
This yields
And so the general solution near the origin is given by:

It is bounded near t = 0 only if c2 = 0.

Replacing t with ½(1-x) , follows that the solutions of (1)
near x = 1 are precisely constant multiples of

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 Section – 44
Legendre’s Equation is given by:

Where n is a non-negative integer.

Solution for this equation about x =0 was found using
the power series solution in Section 28 and is given by:
Here p = n

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 Section - 44
Pn(x) is a polynomial of degree n that contains only
even or odd powers of x according as n is even or odd
and so can be written in the form

Where this sum ends with a0 if n is even and a1 x if n is

odd.

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 Section - 44
The recursion formula and an for the equation (5) are:

Taking k = n, n-2, …, finding the coefficients and

substitution implies

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 Section - 44
It can also be written as

Making it even more concise and using binomial

formula gives us the Rodrigues’ formula:

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 Section - 44
By computations, we can find that:

We have Pn(1) = 1 and Pn(-1) = (-1)n for every n.

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 SECTION 44
LEGENDRE
CHAPTER 8
POLYNOMIALS
PROBLEMS
 Section - 44

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 SECTION 45
PROPERTIES OF
CHAPTER 8
LEGENDRE
POLYNOMIALS
 Section - 45
• Orthogonality: The most important property of the
Legendre polynomials is:

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 Section - 45
Legendre series:
•From previously proved Legendres’ polynomials, we
can show that

•By using the above formulas and generalizing, we can

write any polynomial p(x) of degree k as

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• So any arbitrary function f(x) can be expanded as

• To find the coefficient an :

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 Section - 45
• As a result, we get the following formula for an

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 Section - 45

• Least Square approximation:

Let f(x) be a function defined on the interval -1≤x ≤1,
and consider the problem of approximating f(x) as
closely as possible in the sense of least squares by
polynomials p(x) of degree ≤n.

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 Section - 45
• Taking the integral, we get

as representing the sum of the squares of the

deviations of p(x) from f(x), then the problem is to
minimize the value of this integral.
• It turns out that the minimizing polynomial is
precisely the sum of the first n+1 terms of the
Legendre series

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 Section - 45
• Proof of the same: We know that any polynomial
of degree ≤n can be expressed in the form

• The integral becomes

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 Section - 45

• ‘I’ assumes its minimum value when bk = ak

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 SECTION 45
PROPERTIES OF
LEGENDRE CHAPTER 8
POLYNOMIALS
PROBLEMS
 Section - 45

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