MHB Stephen's question at Yahoo Answers regarding an inhomogeneous linear recurrence

  • Thread starter Thread starter MarkFL
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Linear Recurrence
MarkFL
Gold Member
MHB
Messages
13,284
Reaction score
12
Here is the question:

Find The Closed Form?

A1 = 1
an-1 + 2n+1
I know how to get the sequence but I don't know how to write the closed form.

Here is a link to the question:

Find The Closed Form? - Yahoo! Answers

I have posted a link there to this topic so the OP can find my response.
 
Mathematics news on Phys.org
Hello Stephen,

We are given the recurrence:

$$A_{n}=A_{n-1}+2n+1$$ where $$A_1=1$$

Now, if we write the recurrence as:

$$A_{n}-A_{n-1}=2n+1$$

we can see that the difference between two successive terms is a linear function in $n$ and so we know the closed form will be quadratic. Let's take the time to look at a method called symbolic differencing to show that this must be true. Let's begin with the given recurrence:

$$A_{n}=A_{n-1}+2n+1$$

We may now increase $n$ by one to write the recurrence equivalently as:

$$A_{n+1}=A_{n}+2(n+1)+1$$

Subtracting the former from the latter, we obtain:

$$A_{n+1}=2A_{n}-A_{n-1}+2$$

$$A_{n+2}=2A_{n+1}-A_{n}+2$$

Subtracting the former from the latter, we obtain:

$$A_{n+2}=3A_{n+1}-3A_{n}+A_{n-1}$$

We now have a homogeneous recurrence, whose associated characteristic equation is:

$$r^3-3r^2+3r-1=(r-1)^3=0$$

Because the characteristic roots are $r=1$ of multiplicity 3, we know the closed form is:

$$A_n=k_1+k_2n+k_3n^2$$

where the parameters $k_i$ may be determined by initial values.

We are given:

$$A_1=1$$

and so using the original inhomogeneous recurrence, we may compute the next two terms:

$$A_2=1+2(2)+1=6$$

$$A_3=6+2(3)+1=13$$

Now we have enough values to determine the parameters. We obtain the following 3X3 system:

$$A_1=k_1+k_2\cdot1+k_3\cdot1^2=k_1+k_2+k_3=1$$

$$A_2=k_1+k_2\cdot2+k_3\cdot2^2=k_1+2k_2+4k_3=6$$

$$A_3=k_1+k_2\cdot3+k_3\cdot3^2=k_1+3k_2+9k_3=13$$

Solving this system, we find:

$$k_1=-2,\,k_2=2,\,k_3=1$$

and so the closed form for the recurrence is:

$$A_n=-2+2n+n^2=n^2+2n-2$$

To Stephen and any other guests viewing this topic, I invite and encourage you to post other recurrence or difference equation questions in our http://www.mathhelpboards.com/f15/ forum.

Best Regards,

Mark.
 
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. In Dirac’s Principles of Quantum Mechanics published in 1930 he introduced a “convenient notation” he referred to as a “delta function” which he treated as a continuum analog to the discrete Kronecker delta. The Kronecker delta is simply the indexed components of the identity operator in matrix algebra Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/what-exactly-is-diracs-delta-function/ by...
Fermat's Last Theorem has long been one of the most famous mathematical problems, and is now one of the most famous theorems. It simply states that the equation $$ a^n+b^n=c^n $$ has no solutions with positive integers if ##n>2.## It was named after Pierre de Fermat (1607-1665). The problem itself stems from the book Arithmetica by Diophantus of Alexandria. It gained popularity because Fermat noted in his copy "Cubum autem in duos cubos, aut quadratoquadratum in duos quadratoquadratos, et...
I'm interested to know whether the equation $$1 = 2 - \frac{1}{2 - \frac{1}{2 - \cdots}}$$ is true or not. It can be shown easily that if the continued fraction converges, it cannot converge to anything else than 1. It seems that if the continued fraction converges, the convergence is very slow. The apparent slowness of the convergence makes it difficult to estimate the presence of true convergence numerically. At the moment I don't know whether this converges or not.
Back
Top