2.8.

THE BINOMIAL EXPANSION 25

2.8 The Binomial Expansion

One series expansion which occurs often in examples and applications is

the binomial expansion. This is simply the expansion of the expression
(a + b)p in powers of a and b. We will investigate this expansion first for
nonnegative integer powers p and then derive the expansion for other
values of p. While the binomial expansion can be obtained using Taylor
series in the last section, we will provide a more interesting derivation here
to show that
∞
X
(a + b)p = Crp an−r br , (2.15)
r=0

where the Crp are called the binomial coefficients.

Lets list some of the common expansions for nonnegative integer powers.

(a + b)0 = 1
1
(a + b) = a+b
2
(a + b) = a2 + 2ab + b2
(a + b)3 = a3 + 3a2 b + 3ab2 + b3
(a + b)4 = a4 + 4a3 b + 6a2 b2 + 4ab3 + b4
··· (2.16)

We now look at the patterns of the terms in the expansions. First, we note
that each term consists of a product of a power of a and a power of b. The
powers of a are decreasing from n to 0 in the expansion of (a + b)n .
Similarly, the powers of b increase from 0 to n. The sums of the exponents
in each term is n. So, we can write the k + 1st term in the expansion as
an−k bk . For example, in the expansion of (a + b)51 the 6th term is
a51−5 b5 = a46 b5 . However, we do not know the numerical coefficient in the
expansion.

We now list the coefficients for the above expansions.

n=0: 1
n=1: 1 1
n=2: 1 2 1 (2.17)
n=3: 1 3 3 1
n=4: 1 4 6 4 1
26

This pattern is the famous Pascal’s triangle. There are many interesting
features of this triangle. But we will first ask how each row can be
generated.

We see that each row begins and ends with a one. The second term and
next to last term each have coefficients of n. Next we note that consecutive
pairs in each row can be added to obtain entries in the next row. For
example, we have for rows n = 2 and n = 3 that 1 + 2 = 3 and 2 + 1 = 3:
n=2: 1 2 1
& . & . (2.18)
n=3: 1 3 3 1

With this in mind, we can generate the next several rows of our triangle.
n=3: 1 3 3 1
n=4: 1 4 6 4 1
(2.19)
n=5: 1 5 10 10 5 1
n=6: 1 6 15 20 15 6 1
So, for rows n = 4 and n = 5, we see that 1 + 4 = 5, 4 + 6 = 10, etc.

Of course, it would take a while to compute each row up to the desired n.

We need a simple expression for computing a specific coefficient. Consider
the kth term in the expansion of (a + b)n . Let r = k − 1. Then this term is
of the form Crn an−r br . We have seen the the coefficients satisfy
n−1
Crn = Crn−1 + Cr−1 .

Actually, the coefficients have been found to take a simple form,

à !
n! n
Crn = ≡ .
(n − r)!r! r

This is nothing other than the combinatoric symbol for determining how to
choose n things r at a time. In our case, this makes sense. We have to
count the number of ways that we can arrange the r products of b with
n − r products of a. There are n slots to place the b’s. For example, the
r = 2 case for n = 4 involves the six products: aabb, abab, abba, baab, baba,
and bbaa. Thus, it is natural to use this notation. The original problem
that concerned Pascal was in gambling. However, we will not go into that
here.
2.8. THE BINOMIAL EXPANSION 27

So, we have found that

n
à !
X n
n
(a + b) = an−r br . (2.20)
r=0
r

What if a À b? Can we use this to get an approximation to (a + b)n ? If we

neglect b then (a + b)n ' an . How good of an approximation is this? This
is where it would be nice to know the order of the next term in the
expansion, which we could state using big O notation. In order to do this
we first divide out a as
b
(a + b)n = an (1 + )n .
a

Now we have a small parameter, ab . According to what we have seen above,

we can use the binomial expansion to write
n
à !µ ¶
X r
b n b
(1 + )n = . (2.21)
a r=0
r a

Thus, we have a finite sum of terms involving powers of ab . Since a À b,

most of these terms can be neglected. So, we can write
µ ¶2
b b b
(1 + )n = 1 + n + O( ).
a a a

note that we have used the observation that the second coefficient in the
nth row of Pascal’s triangle is n.

Summarizing, this then gives

b
(a + b)n = an (1 + )n
a
µ ¶2
b b
= an (1 + n + O( ))
a a
µ ¶2
n nb n b
= a + na + a O( ). (2.22)
a a

Therefore, we can approximate (a + b)n ' an + nban−1 , with an error on

the order of ban−2 . Note that the order of the error does not include the
constant factor from the expansion. We could also use the approximation
28

that (a + b)n ' O(an ), but it is not typically good enough in applications
because the error in this case is of the order ban−1 .

Now consider the geometric series 1 + x + x2 + . . .. We have seen that such

a series converges for |x| < 1, giving
1
1 + x + x2 + . . . = .
1−x
1
But, 1−x = (1 − x)−1 . This is again a binomial to a power, but the power
is not a nonnegative integer. It turns out that the coefficients of such a
binomial expansion can be written similar to the form in Equation (2.20).

This example suggests that our sum may no longer be finite. So, for p a
real number, we write
∞
à !
X p
p
(1 + x) = xr . (2.23)
r=0
r

However, we quickly run into problems with this form. Consider the
coefficient for r = 1 in an expansion of (1 + x)−1 . This is given by
à !
−1 (−1)! (−1)!
= = .
1 (−1 − 1)!1! (−2)!1!
But what is (−1)!? By definition, it is
(−1)! = (−1)(−2)(−3) · · · .
This product does not seem to exist! But with a little care, we note that
(−1)! (−1)(−2)!
= = −1.
(−2)! (−2)!
Here we have used the fact that n! = n(n − 1)!.

So, we need to be careful not to interpret the combinatorial coefficient

literally. There are better ways to write the general binomial expansion.
We can write the general coefficient as
à !
p p!
=
r (p − r)!r!
p(p − 1) · · · (p − r + 1)(p − r)!
=
(p − r)!r!
p(p − 1) · · · (p − r + 1)
= . (2.24)
r!
2.8. THE BINOMIAL EXPANSION 29

With this in mind we now state the theorem:

General Binomial Expansion The general binomial expansion for

(1 + x)p is a simple generalization of Equation (2.20). For p real, we have
that ∞
X p(p − 1) · · · (p − r + 1) r
(1 + x)p = x . (2.25)
r=0
r!

Often we need the first few terms for the case that x ¿ 1 :
p(p − 1) 2
(1 + x)p = 1 + px + x + O(x3 ). (2.26)
2