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Limit of Geometry Sequence and Series

Motivation:

 

                         For geometry sequence

                                           A, Ar, Ar2, Ar3,  Ar4, …, Arn, …

                        Does this sequence has limit? Or under which condition that the limit of this sequence exists?   Furthermore, the geometry series

 

                                         Sn = A + Ar + Ar2 + Ar3 + … + Arn

 

                       What will happen if   ? It involves with the sum of infinitely many terms.

 

 

Notation ( Summation )

                We introduce a notation here for the sum of a sequence up to n terms:

 

                                   =

                The notation means when i runs from 1 to n,  you just add all of those terms for every possible i.  We use some examples to explain.

 

 

 

 

 

Example 1:       = n

                     When i changes,  1 is still equal to 1. And after i runs from 1 to n, we have n 1s.  So, the sum of those 1s is n.

 

 

 

 

 

Example 2:    = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + … + n = n(n+1)/2

                      In this example, when i=1, we have a term 1; when i=2, we have 2; … Thus, the result is the sum from 1 to n.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theorem:  when     |r| < 1 .

      Proof:

                       For any  >0,   if we have

                                                   | rn |  <

                                        log | rn | < log

                                   n log |r| < log

                                  n >        ( because  log|r|  < 0 when  |r| < 1 )

 

                       In other words, for  any  > 0 ,  we can choose an integer K such that K is the least integer that is larger than   ,  and

                                 |rn| <     when n > K  .

 

                       Thus,    .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Example

        Sol:

                       Cn =  =

                           =0  and  =0

 

                         Thus,       Cn = 5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theorem ( Convergence of Geometry Series )

             Let   Sn =  .   The limit of  {Sn} exists only when   | r | < 1 .

             Furthermore, if  0< |r| < 1,  then

                                           

                                                         =

 

         Proof:

                          Case I:    r  1,   then  Sn =  =

 

                                           {Sn} diverges when  |r| > 1.

                                       When  |r| < 1,    .

                                          Thus,

                                                          =   

 

 

 

                          Case II:  r=1,  then Sn = n .

                                            In this case ,  {Sn} diverges .

 

 

Example:  0.1 + 0.01+ 0.001+ 0.0001 + ….   ( infinitely many terms )

         Sol:

                         Let Sn =

                         Then

                                     =  =

                         And this is the fact we know since long time ago that

                                         = 0.1111111…

 

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