If I had to name one mathematical theorem that's the most essential for understanding physics, it would be Taylor's formula. It shows up in virtually everything we do in physics.

In this video, I'll teach you the basics of Taylor series, and show you a few applications in different corners of physics. In the first part, we'll go through the math, including how to write Taylor's formula in a particularly beautiful way that also makes the generalization to the multi-variable case straightforward.

In the second half, we'll look at three physics applications. First, we'll discuss how to linearize complicated F = ma equations to simplify them in special limits. Then we'll learn to take the non-relativistic limit of Einstein's energy formula, and see how it's related to the fine-structure correction to the binding energy of a hydrogen atom. And third we'll look at the definition of the momentum operator in quantum mechanics.

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