5/25/2017 CalculusIISequences

Sequences
Letsstartoffthissectionwithadiscussionofjustwhatasequenceis.Asequenceisnothingmorethana
listofnumberswritteninaspecificorder.Thelistmayormaynothaveaninfinitenumberoftermsinthem
althoughwewillbedealingexclusivelywithinfinitesequencesinthisclass.Generalsequencetermsare
denotedasfollows,

Becausewewillbedealingwithinfinitesequenceseachterminthesequencewillbefollowedbyanother
termasnotedabove.Inthenotationaboveweneedtobeverycarefulwiththesubscripts.Thesubscriptof
denotesthenextterminthesequenceandNOToneplusthenthterm!Inotherwords,

sobeverycarefulwhenwritingsubscriptstomakesurethatthe+1doesntmigrateoutofthesubscript!
Thisisaneasymistaketomakewhenyoufirststartdealingwiththiskindofthing.

Thereisavarietyofwaysofdenotingasequence.Eachofthefollowingareequivalentwaysofdenotinga
sequence.



Inthesecondandthirdnotationsaboveanisusuallygivenbyaformula.

Acoupleofnotesarenowinorderaboutthesenotations.First,notethedifferencebetweenthesecondand
thirdnotationsabove.Ifthestartingpointisnotimportantorisimpliedinsomewaybytheproblemitis
oftennotwrittendownaswedidinthethirdnotation.Next,weusedastartingpointof inthethird
notationonlysowecouldwriteonedown.Thereisabsolutelynoreasontobelievethatasequencewillstart
at .Asequencewillstartwhereeveritneedstostart.

http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcII/Sequences.aspx 1/1