Trying to approximate a generic continuous function on with the Fourier trigonometric series of the form
is in general not very fruitful. Here’s such an approximation to
, with the sum over
:

It’s better to make a linear change of variable: consider on the interval
, and use the formula for the cosine series. This results in
, which is approximated by the partial sum
of its cosine Fourier series as follows.

But one can do much better with a different, nonlinear change of variable. Consider on the interval
, and again use the formula for the cosine series. This results in
, which is approximated by the partial sum
of its cosine Fourier series as follows.

Yes, I can’t see any difference either: the error is less than .
The composition with cosine improves approximation because is naturally a periodic function, with no jumps or corners in its graph. Fourier series, which are periodic by nature, follow such functions more easily.
A practical implication of this approximation of is the Clenshaw-Curtis integration method. It can be expressed in one line:
The integral is approximated by summing
, where
are even-numbered cosine coefficients of
. In the example with
using just three coefficients yields
while the exact integral is .
At first this doesn’t look practical at all: after all, the Fourier coefficients are themselves found by integration. But since is so close to a trigonometric polynomial, one can sample it at equally spaced points and apply the Fast Fourier transform to the result, quickly obtaining many coefficients at once. This is what the Clenshaw-Curtis quadrature does (at least in principle, the practical implementation may streamline these steps.)