Sequence and Patterns
Sequence and Patterns
Sequence and Patterns
PATTERNS
Simple Sequences
In mathematics, a sequence
• A sequence is an ordered list of numbers (or other elements like
geometric objects), that often follow a specific pattern or function.
Sequences can be both finite and infinite.
• is a chain of numbers (or other objects) that usually follow a particular
pattern. The individual elements in a sequence are called terms
Here are a few examples of sequences. Can you find their
patterns and calculate the next two terms?
Arithmetic Sequences and Sums
Sequence
• A Sequence is a set of things (usually numbers) that are in
order.
Each number in the sequence is called a term (or sometimes
"element" or "member"), read Sequences and Series for more
details.
Arithmetic Sequence
• In an Arithmetic Sequence the difference between one term and the
next is a constant.
• In other words, we just add the same value each time ... infinitely.
• Example:
1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, ...
This sequence has a difference of 3 between each number.
The pattern is continued by adding 3 to the last number each time, like this:
• In General we could write an arithmetic sequence like this:
{a, a+d, a+2d, a+3d, ... }
where:
a is the first term, and
d is the difference between the terms (called the "common difference")
Example: (continued)
1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22,
25, ...
Has:
a = 1 (the first term)
d = 3 (the "common difference" between terms)
And we get:
{a, a+d, a+2d, a+3d, ... }
It is called Sigma Notation
For example:
Example: Add up the first 10 terms of the arithmetic sequence:
{ 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, ... }
• The values of a, d and n are:
• a = 1 (the first term)
• d = 3 (the "common difference" between terms)
• n = 10 (how many terms to add up)
Becomes:
• Positive, the terms will all be the same sign as the initial term
• Negative, the terms will alternate between positive and negative
• Greater than 1, there will be exponential growth towards positive infinity (+∞)
• 1, the progression will be a constant sequence
• Between −1 and 1 but not 0, there will be exponential decay toward 0
• −1, the progression is an alternating sequence (see alternating series)
• Less than −1, for the absolute values there is exponential growth toward positive and
negative infinity (due to the alternating sign)
• Geometric sequences (with common ratio not equal to −1, 1 or 0) show
exponential growth or exponential decay, as opposed to the linear growth (or
decline) of an arithmetic progression such
as 4,15,26,37,48,⋯4,15,26,37,48,⋯ (with common difference 11). This result
was taken by T.R. Malthus as the mathematical foundation of his Principle of
Population. Note that the two kinds of progression are related: exponentiating
each term of an arithmetic progression yields a geometric progression, while
taking the logarithm of each term in a geometric progression with a positive
common ratio yields an arithmetic progression.
• An interesting result of the definition of a geometric progression is that for
any value of the common ratio, any three consecutive terms a, b,
and c will satisfy the following equation:
=ac
Summing the First n Terms in a Geometric Sequence