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Each number in the sequence is called a term (or sometimes "element" or "member"),
read Sequences and Series for a more in-depth discussion.
Finding Missing Numbers
To find a missing number, first find a Rule behind the Sequence.
Sometimes we can just look at the numbers and see a pattern:
Example: 1, 4, 9, 16, ?
Answer: they are Squares (12=1, 22=4, 32=9, 42=16, ...)
Rule: xn = n2
Sequence: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, ...
Did you see how we wrote that rule using "x" and "n" ?
xn means "term number n", so term 3 is written x3
We can use a Rule to find any term. For example, the 25th term can be found by "plugging
in" 25 wherever n is.
x25 = 252 = 625
... it may be a list of the winners' numbers ... so the next number could
be ... anything!
Simplest Rule
When in doubt choose the simplest rule that makes sense, but also mention that there are other
solutions.
Finding Differences
Sometimes it helps to find the differences between each pair of numbers ... this can often reveal
an underlying pattern.
Here is a simple case:
The differences are always 2, so we can guess that "2n" is part of the answer.
Let us try 2n:
n: 1 2 3 4 5
Terms (xn): 7 9 11 13 15
2n: 2 4 6 8 10
Wrong by: 5 5 5 5 5
The last row shows that we are always wrong by 5, so just add 5 and we are done:
Rule: xn = 2n + 5
OK, we could have worked out "2n+5" by just playing around with the numbers a bit, but we want
a systematic way to do it, for when the sequences get more complicated.
Second Differences
In the sequence {1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16, 22, ...} we need to find the differences ...
... and then find the differences of those (called second differences), like this:
The second differences in this case are 1.
With second differences we multiply by n22
In our case the difference is 1, so let us try just n22:
n: 1 2 3 4 5
Terms (xn): 1 2 4 7 11