Calculate Sigma Sums in Excel for Large n

[alane1994]

Is anyone familiar enough with excel to use it to find the sum in of sigma notation when "n" is large?

$$\Sigma^{40}_{k=1} \sqrt\frac{3k-3}{4}$$

Something like this?

 

[tkhunny]

Is it a matter of familiarity or a matter of just doing it?

Excel 2003 limited one to ~64,000 "n" in any single column. You could get past it by using multiple columns or sheets.

Excel 2007 and 2010 are more in the ~1,000,000 range.

If you know how to anchor a =sum(), you should be able to produce the sequence of partial sums quite easily.

Still, I don't know how large you are talking.