Maclaurin series by substitution
Problem 7.358 · medium
Use a known Maclaurin series to find the first four nonzero terms of the Maclaurin series of \( \displaystyle f(x) = x \cos{\left(3 x \right)} \).
- Start from a known series (x cos(cx)) and substitute or multiply term by term.
- \[ \lim_{x \to 0^+}\left(\frac{\frac{81 x^{7}}{80} - \frac{27 x^{5}}{8} + \frac{9 x^{3}}{2} + x \cos{\left(3 x \right)} - x}{x^{7}}\right) = 0 \]These terms match f through x^7.✓ Proved
Answer \( - \frac{81 x^{7}}{80} + \frac{27 x^{5}}{8} - \frac{9 x^{3}}{2} + x + \cdots \)
Lines: 1 proved, 1 not checked. The answer was also checked a second way, without looking at the solution. The reviewers disagree about how one step is explained; every verdict is in the receipt.
The full receipt
| Line | Status | Checked by | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Not checked | — | a sentence; read, not computed |
| 2 | ✓ Proved | sympy 1.14.0 | simplify(lhs - rhs) reduced to 0 |
| answer, a second way | ✓ Checked independently | sympy 1.14.0 + mpmath 1.3.0 | coefficients from derivatives at 0, and f − T is tiny at x = 0.01 |
Reviewers
gpt-oss:20b: passqwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) — The stated answer is incorrect; the coefficient of x^5 should be 27/8, but the coefficient of x^7 is -81/160, not -81/80. The solution claims the terms match through x^7, which is false.
Every verdict on record (4)
gpt-oss:20b: pass 2026-10-06qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) 2026-10-06 — The stated answer is incorrect; the coefficient of x^5 should be 27/8, but the coefficient of x^7 is -81/160, not -81/80. The solution claims the terms match through x^7, which is false.qwen3.6:27b-mlx: pass 2026-10-06 — The solution correctly identifies the method (using the known Maclaurin series for cosine and multiplying by x) and the final answer matches the derived series terms. The algebraic check confirms the coefficients are correct.gpt-oss:20b: fail (misleading) 2026-10-06 — The solution claims to use a known series but never actually derives or displays the Maclaurin coefficients; the limit test is insufficient to justify the stated terms, so a student would be misled into thinking the series was correctly obtained.
Proved: SymPy reduced the difference between the two sides to zero. Checked independently: a separate
method, named above, confirmed it. Checked numerically: the two sides agree at every sampled point, which is evidence,
not proof. Reviewed: a model or a person read it; that is all a sentence can have. Solution by
generator:structured/maclaurin_substitution, checked 2026-10-06 with SymPy 1.14.0.