Prove this is a second order approximation of the derivative.

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I would like to prove that, if $g\in C^3([a,b])$, then:

$$\left|\displaystyle\frac{g(t_n+h)-g(t_n)}{h}-\displaystyle\frac{g'(t_n)+g'(t_n+h)}{2}\right|\leq \displaystyle\frac{h^2}{12}\|g^{(3)}(x)\|,$$

for $t_n, t_n+h \in [a,b]$.

I'm pretty sure this is done by expressing $g(t_n+h)$ in terms of $g(t_n)$ via a Taylor expression, viceversa and then do the difference of the expressions, so that's what I did.

Nonetheless, I reached an expression of the form:

$$\displaystyle\frac{h^2}{6}g^{(3)}(\epsilon_1)-\displaystyle\frac{h^2}{4}g^{(3)}(\epsilon_2).$$

Although, $$\displaystyle\frac{h^2}{6}-\displaystyle\frac{h^2}{4}=-\displaystyle\frac{h^2}{12}.$$ Obviously you cannot do that.

Any help on this one?

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You have found out that using separate formulas for both terms leads to apparently unrelated midpoints, and the inability to apply an intermediate-value argument to their difference.

The answer to this situation is to analyze these terms together, and to apply the mean-value theorem only once, for all terms combined, to get only one midpoint. Thus define $$ f(h)=2(g(t+h)-g(t))-h(g'(t+h)+g'(t)) $$ and compute the derivatives and their values at $h=0$ \begin{align} f'(h)&=2g'(t+h)-(g'(t+h)+g'(t))-hg''(t+h)\\ &=g'(t+h)-g'(t)-hg''(t+h),& f'(0)&=0,\\ f''(h)&=-hg'''(t+h),&f''(0)&=0. \end{align} The next derivative is in general non-zero at $h=0$. So we get a point of cubic tangency, via mean value theorems thus $$ \frac{f(h)}{h^3}=\frac{f'(h_1)}{3h_1^2}=\frac{f''(h_2)}{6h_2}=-\frac{g'''(t+h_2)}{6} $$ with $h>h_1>h_2>0$. Restoring the original expression we find thus (with $h_2=\theta h$) $$ \frac{g(t+h)-g(t)}{h}-\frac{g'(t+h)+g'(t)}2=-\frac{h^2}{12}g'''(t+\theta h). $$

This is as equality only valid for scalar functions $g$. For vector-valued functions this is true for every scalar component, but the midpoints can be different.