Limits of a Sequence with the Sum of Squares or the Sum of Cubes

In the limits of sequences, it sometimes looks like this:

Limit of a sequence with the sum of squares in the numerator

and sometimes even like this:

So what then?

The answer is simple:

formulas for the sum of squares and the sum of cubes of consecutive natural numbers.

They go like this:

Formulas – just like any formulas – are to be memorized. If you’ve had similar examples and really need them.

Knowing these formulas, calculating our limits becomes trivial:

Next limit:

Inductive proofs for formulas

The validity of the formulas can be quite easily proven inductively (at least a few years ago this was a complete standard in high school). I will do this for the formula:

1.

Step 1 of induction

We check the validity of the formula for n=1:

It matches

Step 2 of induction

We assume assumption, that for a certain natural n:

Step 3 of induction

We prove the thesis (using the accepted assumption), that for n+1 the formula also holds, i.e.:

On the left side instead of we substitute the formula from the assumption, on the right we just organize:

And then instead of forcing it, we work a little more subtly:

So the thesis is proven. The formula is proven inductively.

I invite you to inductively prove the second formula, for the sum of cubes:

Krystian Karczyński

Założyciel i szef serwisu eTrapez.

Magister matematyki Politechniki Poznańskiej. Korepetytor matematyki z wieloletnim stażem. Twórca pierwszych Kursów eTrapez, które zdobyły ogromną popularność wśród studentów w całej Polsce.

Mieszka w Szczecinie. Lubi spacery po lesie, plażowanie i kajaki.

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