Rearrangement of infinite series

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Homework Help Overview

The original poster is working on proving a relationship involving the rearrangement of an infinite series, specifically showing that a rearrangement of a geometric series converges to the same limit. The focus is on establishing a bijective mapping of natural numbers to themselves.

Discussion Character

  • Conceptual clarification, Problem interpretation, Assumption checking

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • The original poster describes their attempts to identify a formula for the bijective mapping related to the rearrangement of the series. They express uncertainty about whether their approach is correct. Other participants suggest considering how to construct a bijection from natural numbers to integers and explore different mappings.

Discussion Status

The discussion includes various attempts to clarify the mapping and explore potential formulas. While some participants provide hints and suggestions, there is no explicit consensus on the approach, and the original poster indicates they have resolved their block.

Contextual Notes

The original poster mentions a pattern they observed in the rearrangement but struggles to formalize it into a bijective formula. There is an implication of needing to adhere to certain mathematical properties of series and mappings.

happyg1
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Hi,
I'm working on this problem:
Prove that if |x|<1, then
1 + x^2 + x + x^4 + x^6 + x^3 + x^10 + x^5 + ...= 1/(1-x).
I know that this is a rearrangement of the (absolutely convergent) geometric series, so it converges to the same limit. My trouble is proving that the rearrangement represents a 1-1 and onto mapping of the natural number onto themselves. I wrote out the terms and found the pattern, but I can't seem to get a formula for it. I'm stuck. Here's what I got:The first column represents the geometric series. The number after the colon is the rearrangement, and the last column is how I related the rearrangement to the original goemetric series.

n=0:0==>n
n=1:2==>n+1
n=2:1==>n-1
n=3:4==>n+1
n=4:6==>n+2
n=5:3==>n-2
n=6:8==>n+2
n=7:10==>n+3
n=8:5==>n-3
n=9:12==>n+3
.
.
.
It has a definite pattern, and I can see it, but I can't write a formula down that works so that I can show it's bijective. I'm not sure that I am going about this correctly.
Any input will be appreciated.
CC
 
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Hint, perhaps.

How do you construct a bijection from [tex]\mathbb{N}[/tex] to [tex]\mathbb{Z}[/tex]?
 
I let 0=1, -n=n+1 and n=2n+1...or something similar.
How does that help me map [tex]\mathbb{N}[/tex] to [tex]\mathbb{N}[/tex] in my situation?
 
any help? Any thoughts?
 
Seems pretty simple to me, for n, some natrual number.

3n ==> 4n
3n + 1 ==> 4n + 2
3n + 2 ==> 2n + 1

Doesn't take much beyond that to work it out.
 
thanks! I just had a block on getting the formula for the pattern. I now have it solved! AWESOME!
 

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