它如何做到这一点的本质在于杰拉德·惠特利的《应用数值分析》节选:

当你的软件程序要求计算机获取一个值时 或者，你有没有想过它是如何得到 如果它能计算的最强大的函数是多项式? 它不会在表中查找这些并进行插值!相反, 计算机逼近除多项式以外的所有函数 一个多项式，可以精确地给出值。

上面要提到的几点是，一些算法实际上是从表中插值的，尽管只是在前几次迭代中。还要注意它是如何提到计算机利用近似多项式而没有指定哪种类型的近似多项式。正如本文中其他人指出的那样，在这种情况下，切比雪夫多项式比泰勒多项式更有效。

像正弦和余弦这样的函数是在微处理器内部的微码中实现的。例如，英特尔芯片就有相应的组装指令。C编译器将生成调用这些汇编指令的代码。(相反，Java编译器不会。Java在软件而不是硬件中计算三角函数，因此运行速度要慢得多。)

芯片不使用泰勒级数来计算三角函数，至少不完全是这样。首先，他们使用CORDIC，但他们也可能使用一个短的泰勒级数来优化CORDIC的结果，或者用于特殊情况，例如在非常小的角度下以相对较高的精度计算正弦。有关更多解释，请参阅StackOverflow的回答。

OK kiddies, time for the pros.... This is one of my biggest complaints with inexperienced software engineers. They come in calculating transcendental functions from scratch (using Taylor's series) as if nobody had ever done these calculations before in their lives. Not true. This is a well defined problem and has been approached thousands of times by very clever software and hardware engineers and has a well defined solution. Basically, most of the transcendental functions use Chebyshev Polynomials to calculate them. As to which polynomials are used depends on the circumstances. First, the bible on this matter is a book called "Computer Approximations" by Hart and Cheney. In that book, you can decide if you have a hardware adder, multiplier, divider, etc, and decide which operations are fastest. e.g. If you had a really fast divider, the fastest way to calculate sine might be P1(x)/P2(x) where P1, P2 are Chebyshev polynomials. Without the fast divider, it might be just P(x), where P has much more terms than P1 or P2....so it'd be slower. So, first step is to determine your hardware and what it can do. Then you choose the appropriate combination of Chebyshev polynomials (is usually of the form cos(ax) = aP(x) for cosine for example, again where P is a Chebyshev polynomial). Then you decide what decimal precision you want. e.g. if you want 7 digits precision, you look that up in the appropriate table in the book I mentioned, and it will give you (for precision = 7.33) a number N = 4 and a polynomial number 3502. N is the order of the polynomial (so it's p4.x^4 + p3.x^3 + p2.x^2 + p1.x + p0), because N=4. Then you look up the actual value of the p4,p3,p2,p1,p0 values in the back of the book under 3502 (they'll be in floating point). Then you implement your algorithm in software in the form: (((p4.x + p3).x + p2).x + p1).x + p0 ....and this is how you'd calculate cosine to 7 decimal places on that hardware.

请注意，在FPU中大多数硬件实现的超越操作通常涉及一些微码和类似的操作(取决于硬件)。 切比雪夫多项式用于大多数先验多项式，但不是全部。例:使用Newton raphson方法的两次迭代，首先使用查询表，使用平方根更快。 同样，《计算机逼近》这本书会告诉你。

If you plan on implmementing these functions, I'd recommend to anyone that they get a copy of that book. It really is the bible for these kinds of algorithms. Note that there are bunches of alternative means for calculating these values like cordics, etc, but these tend to be best for specific algorithms where you only need low precision. To guarantee the precision every time, the chebyshev polynomials are the way to go. Like I said, well defined problem. Has been solved for 50 years now.....and thats how it's done.

Now, that being said, there are techniques whereby the Chebyshev polynomials can be used to get a single precision result with a low degree polynomial (like the example for cosine above). Then, there are other techniques to interpolate between values to increase the accuracy without having to go to a much larger polynomial, such as "Gal's Accurate Tables Method". This latter technique is what the post referring to the ACM literature is referring to. But ultimately, the Chebyshev Polynomials are what are used to get 90% of the way there.

享受。

是的，也有计算罪恶的软件算法。基本上，用数字计算机计算这些东西通常是用数值方法来完成的，比如近似表示函数的泰勒级数。

数值方法可以将函数近似到任意精度，因为浮点数的精度是有限的，所以它们非常适合这些任务。

计算正弦/余弦/正切其实很容易通过代码使用泰勒级数来实现。自己写一个只需5秒钟。

整个过程可以用这个方程来概括:

下面是我为C语言写的一些例程:

double _pow(double a, double b) {
    double c = 1;
    for (int i=0; i<b; i++)
        c *= a;
    return c;
}

double _fact(double x) {
    double ret = 1;
    for (int i=1; i<=x; i++) 
        ret *= i;
    return ret;
}

double _sin(double x) {
    double y = x;
    double s = -1;
    for (int i=3; i<=100; i+=2) {
        y+=s*(_pow(x,i)/_fact(i));
        s *= -1;
    }  
    return y;
}
double _cos(double x) {
    double y = 1;
    double s = -1;
    for (int i=2; i<=100; i+=2) {
        y+=s*(_pow(x,i)/_fact(i));
        s *= -1;
    }  
    return y;
}
double _tan(double x) {
     return (_sin(x)/_cos(x));  
}

关于sin()， cos()，tan()这样的三角函数，在5年之后，没有提到高质量三角函数的一个重要方面:极差约简。

任何这些函数的早期步骤都是将角度(以弧度为单位)减小到2*π区间。但是π是无理数，所以像x =余数(x, 2*M_PI)这样的简单简化会引入误差，因为M_PI或机器pi是π的近似值。那么，如何求x =余数(x, 2*π)呢?

早期的库使用扩展精度或精心设计的编程来提供高质量的结果，但仍然在有限的double范围内。当请求一个较大的值，如sin(pow(2,30))时，结果是无意义的或0.0，并且可能将错误标志设置为TLOSS完全损失精度或PLOSS部分损失精度。

将大的值缩小到像-π到π这样的区间是一个具有挑战性的问题，它可以与基本三角函数(比如sin())本身的挑战相媲美。

一个好的报告是大论点的论据缩减:好到最后一位(1992)。它涵盖了这个问题很好:讨论了需要和事情是如何在各种平台(SPARC, PC, HP, 30+其他)，并提供了一个解决方案算法，为所有双从-DBL_MAX到DBL_MAX的高质量结果。

如果原始参数以度为单位，但可能值很大，则首先使用fmod()以提高精度。一个好的fmod()将不会引入任何错误，从而提供出色的范围缩小。

// sin(degrees2radians(x))
sin(degrees2radians(fmod(x, 360.0))); // -360.0 < fmod(x,360) < +360.0

各种三角恒等式和remquo()提供了更多的改进。示例:信德()