High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In mathematics, the Taylor series is a representation of a function as an infinite sum of terms calculated from the values of its derivatives at a single point. It is named after the English mathematician Brook Taylor. If the series is centered at zero, the series is also called a Maclaurin series, named after the Scottish mathematician Colin Maclaurin. It is common practice to use a finite number of terms of the series to approximate a function. The Taylor series may be regarded as the limit of the Taylor polynomials.