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Stratosphere
Feb17-10, 02:06 PM
Is there a particular way to get the partial sum easier than just adding the terms up?

In this formula it would take a while to add up the terms if I wanted to use n=20:

S_{n}+\int ^{\infty}_{n+1}f(x) dx\leqs\leq S_{n}+\int ^{\infty}_{n}f(x)dx

How would I get the exact value of the sum?

mathman
Feb17-10, 03:05 PM
You haven't defined what the terms in the sum are, so there is no way of knowing what can be done.

Stratosphere
Feb17-10, 03:33 PM
You haven't defined what the terms in the sum are, so there is no way of knowing what can be done.

Oh, I though that there was something like a formula that could be used in general cases. So I'll use the example:

\sum^{\infty}_{n=0} \frac{(-1)^{n}x^{2n}}{n!}

mathman
Feb18-10, 04:26 PM
For the particular example the sum is exp(-x2). For this case, there is no way to get partial sums except by direct addition.