Khris Thammavong

April 26, 2018

B5

Sequences and Series

Sequences are like an ongoing set of numbers that follow a specific pattern. There are

two main types of sequences: arithmetic sequences and geometric sequences. Arithmetic

sequences generally follow a rule of adding or subtracting a certain number repeatedly, similar to

a linear function. The general equations for an arithmetic sequence are:

a​n​ = a​1​ + d(n - 1) and a​n​ = a​0​ ​+ dn

a​n​ is the output (the nth term of the sequence)

a​1 and
​ a​0​ are the 1st and 0th terms respectively

d is the common difference

n is the input

Geometric sequences follow a rule of multiplying or dividing by a certain number

repeatedly, similar to an exponential function. The general equations for a geometric sequence

are:

a​n​ = a​1​(r)​n-1​ and a​n =

​ a​0​(r)​
n

a​n​ is the output (the nth term of the sequence)

a​1 and
​ a​0​ are the 1st and 0th terms respectively

r is the ratio

n is the input
 However, sequences should not be confused with functions as the inputs for a sequence

are only integers; there is no “in-between” numbers.

For example, for the function f(x) = 7x + 4:

f(x) x f(x) x
11 1 35.5 4.5

14.5 1.5 39 5

18 2 42.5 5.5

21.5 2.5 46 6

25 3 49.5 6.5

28.5 3.5 53 7

32 4 56.5 7.5
There are values for those numbers in between the whole number inputs.

On the other hand, for the sequence a​n​ = 4 + 7n:

a​n n a​n n
11 1 N/A 4.5

N/A 1.5 39 5

18 2 N/A 5.5

N/A 2.5 46 6

25 3 N/A 6.5

N/A 3.5 53 7

32 4 N/A 7.5

There are no values for those numbers in between the whole number inputs.

When plotted on a graph, it would only look like dots spaced out that follow the trend.
 Series are pretty much the sums of a sequence. You could use sigma for adding it up, but

there are also certain equations that you can use to find the series of both arithmetic and

geometric sequences. The equation for the series of an arithmetic series is:

S​n​ = ​n(a​1​ + a​n​) S​n​ is the sum up to n terms

2 n is the term number you want to add up to

a​1​ is the first term of the sequence and a​n​ is the nth term of the sequence

The equation for a geometric sequences is:

S​n​ = ​a​1​(1 - r​n​) S​n​ is the sum up to n terms

​ (1
​ - r) a is the first term

r is the ratio and r​n​ is the ratio to the power of how many terms there are

There is also an equation for infinite geometric series, but that’s only for when the absolute value
of the ratio is less than 1:

S​∞​ = ​ a​1​ ​ ​S​∞​ is the sum up to an infinite amount of terms

​​ 1 - r ​a is the zeroth term and r is the ratio

Examples for all three:

Find the sum of the following series

13 + 24 + 35 + 46 + … + 156
We see that this is adding by 11 each time so we know that this is an arithmetic sequence, so we
use the arithmetic series equation.
The first term is 13 and the last term is 156 as we can see, but to discover the number of terms
we have to find how many times it adds by 11
To do that, we subtract 13 from 156 and that gets us 143; divide that by 11 (because that’s what
we add by) and we get 13, but we have to add 1 because we have to count the initial number so
we get 14 terms
To solve this, we just plug in all of the numbers we have collected into the equation:

S​n​ = ​14(13 + 156)​ = 1183

2
Find the sum of the following series

4 + 12 + 36 + 108 + … + 972
We see that this is multiplying by 3 each time so we know that this is an geometric sequence, so
we use the geometric series equation.
Our first term is 4 and we need to find out the amount of terms.
To do so, this time we divide the last term by the first term and we get 243. We use a logarithm
to find out how many times it has to multiply by 3 to get to 243 and that is 5, but we add 1 to
count the initial term so it’s 6.
We have all of our terms discovers so we plug it into our equation:

S​n​ = ​4(1 - 3​6​)​ = 1456

​ (1
​ - 3)

Find the sum of the following infinite series

0.520 + 0.000520 + 0.000000520 + …

We see that this is multiplying by 1/1000 each time so we know that this is an geometric
sequence, and the ratio is less than 1 so we use the infinite geometric series equation.
Our first term is 0.520 and we already have all of our terms, so we plug it in:

S​∞​ = 0​ .520 ​ = ​0.520​ = ​520

1 - 1​​ /​1000 ​ /​1000 ​ 999
999​
​
Connections to other topics we’ve learned in class:
Sequences and series have a lot to do with previous concepts that we’ve learned in class
previously. As mentioned before we can use sigma instead of those equations that we used to
sum up the series. For example in the series we did before of a​n​ = 4 + 7n, we could just plug that
into sigma and for the sum of the first 10 numbers we could get the same answer:
10
∑ 4 + 7n = 425
n=1

10(11 + 74)​ = 425

2
Also, with geometric sequences it is necessary to use logs to discover the amount of
terms. In my previous example with 4 + 12 + 36 + 108 + … + 972, I had to take the log​3​(243) to
find out how many terms there were in the series.

Connections to outside of class:

Series are used in stuff like: finding out how much money is in your savings account after
n years or finding out the population of something that grows exponentially (like in bacteria or
rabbits) after a certain amount of time.
There is also a sequence that is pretty well known to almost everybody and that is the
Fibonacci sequence, in which the next number is found by adding the two previous numbers. If
we take any two consecutive numbers from this sequence and divide the bigger one by the small
one, the ratio is close to the golden ratio, which is represented by the greek letter φ. This number
is around 1.618034… and this ratio is found commonly in art, architecture, and even nature.

Source:
https://www.livescience.com/
37704-phi-golden-ratio.html