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Difference, Such That A A D
Difference, Such That A A D
Objectives:
Arithmetic Series
Determine whether a sequence is arithmetic
Find a formula for an arithmetic sequence
Find the nth term of an arithmetic sequence
Find the sum of a finite arithmetic sequence
Use an arithmetic sequence to solve an application problem
Example: [2 minutes] A pyramid of logs has 2 logs in the top row, 4 logs in the second row
from the top, 6 logs in the third row from the top, and so on, until there are 200 logs in the
bottom row.
Activity I: [8 minutes]
Have the students come up with the total number of rows of logs.
Have the students write and interpret the first 10 terms of the sequence of numbers generated
from the example
Have the students identify the pattern in the sequence of numbers, i.e., come up with the
‘common difference’
Have the students come up with the formula for the nth term of the sequence and use it to
find the number of logs in say the 76th row
Have the students compute the number of logs in the first 12 rows
Have the students come up with the total number of logs in the pyramid?
Activity II:.
Exercises: [6 minutes] Determine whether the sequence is arithmetic. If it is, find the common
difference:
1. 2, 5, 9, 14, 20, …
2. 25, 23, 21, 19, …
1 2 4 5
3. , , 1, , , ...
3 3 3 3
4. an 4 3n
Finding a formula for the nth term of any arithmetic sequence:
Teacher Activity: [4 minutes] Denote the common difference by d, and write the first four
terms:
a1 ,
a2 a1 d ,
a3 a2 d (a1 d ) d a1 2d
a4 a3 d (a2 d ) d a1 3d
Activity IV: [4 minutes] Have the students use the formula to find the nth term of the arithmetic
sequences identified in Activity II (pay more attention to exercise # 4)
Finding a formula for the sum of the first n terms of any arithmetic sequence through an
example (Finite Arithmetic Series):
Activity V: [5 minutes]
Have the students write a formula for the sum of the first 20 terms of the above arithmetic
sequence, i.e. come up with the following result:
(number of terms in the sequence)
S 20 = ( first term + last term)
2
Have the students generalize a formula for the sum of the first n terms of an arithmetic
sequence, i.e. come up with the following result:
1. Have the students use the formula to find the sum of the first 15 terms of the arithmetic
sequences identified in Activity II
300
2. Find the sum (2n 5)
n 1
Example [2 minutes]
One morning (day 1), three people start a chain letter via e-mail. Each of them sends a message
to five other people with the instructions that the receiver must forward the message to 5 other
people the following morning. Assume this process continues each morning without any
repetition of recipients.
Activity I: [8 minutes]
Have the students calculate the number of new recipients to the message on day 2, day 3, day
4 and day 5.
Have the students identify the pattern in the sequence of numbers generated in the first
activity – i.e. come up with the ‘common ratio’
Have the students come up with the formula for the nth term of the sequence and use it to
calculate the number of new recipients on the 7th day
Have the students calculate the total number of people who have received the message in the
first 5 days
Activity IV: [4 minutes] Have the students use the formula to find the nth term of the geometric
sequences identified in Activity II
Formula for the sum of the first n terms of any geometric sequence (Finite Geometric
Series):
Teacher Activity [3 minutes]
Write the following result and explain the symbols
Result 5: When | r | 1 , the sum of the infinite geometric series a1 a2 r a3r ... is given by
2
a
S 1 .
r 1
When | r | 1 , an infinite geometric series does not have a sum.