- #1
jtleafs33
- 28
- 0
Homework Statement
With binomial expansions,
[itex]\frac{x}{1-x}[/itex] = [itex]\sum[/itex][itex]^{n=\infty}_{n=1}[/itex]xn
[itex]\frac{x}{x-1}[/itex] = [itex]\sum[/itex][itex]^{n=\infty}_{n=0}[/itex]x-n
Adding these series yields:
[itex]\sum[/itex][itex]^{n=\infty}_{n=-\infty}[/itex]xn=0
This is nonsense, but what went wrong here?
The Attempt at a Solution
Obviously, [itex]\frac{x}{1-x}[/itex]+[itex]\frac{x}{x-1}[/itex]=0 (1)
It's clear that they tried to transform [itex]\frac{x}{x-1}[/itex] = [itex]\sum[/itex][itex]^{n=\infty}_{n=0}[/itex]x-n into [itex]\frac{x}{x-1}[/itex] = [itex]\sum[/itex][itex]^{n=0}_{n=-\infty}[/itex]xn and then substitute into equation (1) and get an answer of zero.
From there, I'm not sure how in the world they manipulated that series to get a neg. infinity to show up in the limits, and where the mistake in that is.