1.

3 Series EMCDV
It is often important and valuable to determine the sum of the terms of an arithmetic
or geometric sequence. The sum of any sequence of numbers is called a series.
Finite series
We use the symbol S
n
for the sum of the rst n terms of a sequence {T
1
; T
2
; T
3
; . . . ; T
n
}:
S
n
= T
1
+T
2
+T
3
+ +T
n
If we sum only a nite number of terms, we get a nite series.
For example, consider the following sequence of numbers
1; 4; 9; 16; 25; 36; 49; . . .
We can calculate the sum of the rst four terms:
S
4
= 1 + 4 + 9 + 16 = 30
This is an example of a nite series since we are only summing four terms.
Innite series
If we sum innitely many terms of a sequence, we get an innite series:
S

= T
1
+T
2
+T
3
+
Sigma notation EMCDW
Sigma notation is a very useful and compact notation for writing the sum of a given
number of terms of a sequence.
A sum may be written out using the summation symbol

(Sigma), which is the capital

letter S in the Greek alphabet. It indicates that you must sum the expression to the
right of the summation symbol:
For example,
5

n=1
2n = 2 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 10 = 30
In general,
n

i=m
T
i
= T
m
+T
m+1
+ +T
n1
+T
n
where
i is the index of the sum;
m is the lower bound (or start index), shown below the summation symbol;
n is the upper bound (or end index), shown above the summation symbol;
T
i
is a term of a sequence;
the number of terms in the series = end index start index + 1.
19 Chapter 1. Sequences and series