A deep approximation is an approximating function defined by composing more than one layer of simple functions. We study deep approximations of functions of one variable using layers consisting of low-degree polynomials or simple conformal transformations. We show that deep approximations to |x| on -1, 1 achieve exponential convergence with respect to the degrees of freedom. Computational experiments suggest that a composite of two and three polynomial layers can give more accurate approximations than a single polynomial with the same number of coefficients. We also study the related problem of reducing the Runge phenomenon by composing polynomials with conformal transformations.
Kyu Hwang Yeon (Sat,) studied this question.