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Precal 6

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Angelo Freidrich O Ambalong
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13 views6 pages

Precal 6

Uploaded by

Angelo Freidrich O Ambalong
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SERIES

Get Started

A series can be represented in a compact form, called summation or sigma


notation. The Greek capital letter, ∑, is used to represent the sum.

Sigma notation is a concise and convenient way to represent long sums. For
example, we often wish to sum a number of terms such as

1+2+3+4+5 or 1 + 4 + 9 + 16 + 25 + 36

where there is an obvious pattern to the numbers involved. The first of these is the
sum of the first five whole numbers, and the second is the sum of the first six square
numbers. More generally, if we take a sequence of numbers u1, u2, u3, . . ., un
then we can write the sum of these numbers as u1 + u2 + u3 + . . . + un.

A shorter way of writing this is to let ur represent the general term of the sequence
and put

Here, the symbol Σ is the Greek capital letter Sigma corresponding to our letter ‘S’,
and refers to the initial letter of the word ‘Sum’. So this expression means the sum
of all the terms ur where r takes the values from 1 to n. We can also write

to mean the sum of all the terms ur where r takes the values from a to b. In such
a sum, a is called the lower limit and b the upper limit.

1
Examples:
1. Evaluate

Solution This is the sum of all the r 3 terms from r = 1 to r = 4. So we take each
value of r, work out r 3 in each case, and add the results. Therefore

= 13 + 23 + 33 + 43
= 1 + 8 + 27 + 64
= 100 .

2. Evaluate

Solution In this example we have used the letter n to represent the variable in
the sum, rather than r. Any letter can be used, and we find the answer in the
same way as before:

= 22 + 32 + 42 + 52
= 4 + 9 + 16 + 25
= 54 .

3. Evaluate

Notice that, in this example, there are 6 terms in the sum, because we have k = 0
for the first term:

= 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25
= 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32
= 63 .

2
We will need the following well-known summation rules.

1. (n times) = cn, where c is a constant.

2.

3.

4.

Examples:
1. Evaluate

Solution:

= (5+1) + (5+2) + (5+4) + (5+8)

= 6 + 7 + 9 + 13

= 35 .

2. Evaluate

Solutiuon:

(The above step is nothing more than changing the order and grouping of the
original summation.)

(Placing 3 in front of the second summation is simply factoring 3 from each term
in the summation. Now apply Rule 1 to the first summation and Rule 2 to the
second summation.)

= 400 + 15,150

= 15,550 .

3
3. Evaluate

Solution:

(Separate this summation into three separate summations.)

(Factor out the number 6 in the second summation.)

(Apply Rules 1, 2, and 3.)

= 2,686,700 - 120,600 + 1800

= 2,567,900 .

4. Evaluate

Solution:

(Since each summation begins with i=15, WE CANNOT USE THE RULES IN THE
FORM THAT THEY ARE GIVEN. Observe the following simple method to correct this
shortcoming.)

(Now apply Rules 1 and 2.)

= 4(11,325 - 105) + (136)

= 45,016 .

4
4. Evaluate

Solution:

(The summations must begin with i=1 in order to use the given formulas.)

= 10,497,600 - 2025 + 173,880 - 285

= 10,669,170 .

5
Activity

A. Rewrite each series as sums.

B. Evaluate each series.

C. Rewrite each series using sigma notation.

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