History of additional mathematics

Geometric Sequences and Series (geometric progression) are patterns or sets of

terms where the previous number is multiplied or divided by the common ratio. This
is important because it represents how you can set a constant for anything and be
able to figure out the amount at any time because there is a pattern to find it. For
example the sequence: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32.....shows that there is a common ratio of 2
because every number is multiplied by 2. Also in the sequence: 25, 5, 1, 1/5...the
common ratio is 5 because you are dividing each previous number by 5. The form of
a geometric sequence is: x, xz, xz2, xz3, xz4, ....

History
Geometric sequences are popularly found in Book IX of Elements by Euclid in 300
B.C. Euclid of Alexandria, a Greek mathematician also considered the "Father of
Geometry" was the main contributor of this theory. Geometric sequences and
series are one of the easiest examples of infinite series with finite sums. Geometric
sequences and series have played an important role in the early development of
calculus, and have continued to be a main case of study in convergence of series.
Geometric sequences and series are used a lot in mathematics, and they are very
important in physics, engineering, biology, economics, computer science, queuing
theory, and finance. It was included in Euclid's book Elements that was part of a
composition of other math theories for people that became very popular because it
was the first collection that showed a lot of the main math theories together
featured simply.

In Depth Description

EXAMPLE: Sequence B: 0.01 , 0.06 , 0.36 , 2.16 , 12.96 , ...

For the sequence above, the rule an = (0.01)6n - 1 would give the values...
(0.01)61 - 1 = (0.01)60 = (0.01)(1) = 0.01
(0.01)62 - 1 = (0.01)61 = (0.01)(6) = 0.06
(0.01)63 - 1 = (0.01)62 = (0.01)(36) = 0.36
(0.01)64 - 1 = (0.01)63 = (0.01)(216) = 2.16
(0.01)65 - 1 = (0.01)64 = (0.01)(1296) = 12.96
Link to Arithmetic Sequences and Series: Arithmetic Sequences and Series

Applications

Geometric sequences and series are applicable to real life in accounting and
economics because it is useful for finding average payments you pay taxes or a
loan. For example:
Suppose you apply for a $10,000 loan at a bank and you would like to repay it in 10
years in a set yearly payment plan. The interest rate is 10%. How much is your
yearly payment going to be ?
In finance, getting a dollar next year is worth less than getting a dollar now. It is
because if the interest rate is 10% then if you have a dollar now and lend it to the
bank for a year then you'll have $1.1 next year. How much of today's money is
equivalent to $1 next year? The answer is 1/1.1, because if you have $ 1/1.1 dollar
now and invest it for a year then you'll have exactly $ 1/1.1 * 1.1 = $1 next year.
Similarly, having $1 in two years is equivalent to having $1/1.1^2 now. This is the
so-called present value of future payments. Dividing by 1.1, 1.1^2 etc. is called
discounting.
This means that if your yearly uniform payment is denoted by let's say C, then, in
present value, the bank will get:
$ C/1.1 + C/1.1^2 + C/1.1^3 + ... + C/1.1^10 from you.
This can be summed up using the formula for a geometric series:
q + q^2 + q^3 + ... + q^n = (1-q^n)*q/(1-q), and in our case, q=1/1.1, and the
sum is:
$ C*q + C*q^2 + C*q^3 + ... + C*q^n = C*(1-q^n)*q/(1-q) = 6.14*C.
Assuming that all charges and profit of the bank is included in the interest rate, the
bank will be willing to give you $10000 if the present value of its future incomes
from you is $10000:
6.14 * C = $10000, which yields
C=1627.45.
This means that your yearly payment will be $1627.45.

Technology

Method on how to do sequences on a TI-83 and TI-84:

Video Link: Geometric Sequences and Series on a Calculator

Price index
History of early price indices[edit]
No clear consensus has emerged on who created the first price index. The earliest
reported research in this area came from Welshman Rice Vaughan who examined
price level change in his 1675 book A Discourse of Coin and Coinage. Vaughan
wanted to separate the inflationary impact of the influx of precious metals brought
by Spain from the New World from the effect due to currency debasement. Vaughan
compared labor statutes from his own time to similar statutesdating back to Edward
III. These statutes set wages for certain tasks and provided a good record of the
change in wage levels. Vaughan reasoned that the market for basic labor did not
fluctuate much with time and that a basic laborers salary would probably buy the
same amount of goods in different time periods, so that a laborer's salary acted as a
basket of goods. Vaughan's analysis indicated that price levels in England had risen
six to eightfold over the preceding century. [1]

William Fleetwood
While Vaughan can be considered a forerunner of price index research, his analysis
did not actually involve calculating an index. [1] In 1707 Englishman William
Fleetwood created perhaps the first true price index. An Oxford student asked
Fleetwood to help show how prices had changed. The student stood to lose his
fellowship since a fifteenth-century stipulation barred students with annual incomes
over five pounds from receiving a fellowship. Fleetwood, who already had an
interest in price change, had collected a large amount of price data going back
hundreds of years. Fleetwood proposed an index consisting of averaged price
relatives and used his methods to show that the value of five pounds had changed
greatly over the course of 260 years. He argued on behalf of the Oxford students
and published his findings anonymously in a volume entitled Chronicon Preciosum.[2]
Differentation
The creation of Calculus was one of the greatest achievements of the 1600s, but the
inventor of calculus is widely disputed: Was it Isaac Newton or Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz? When Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz first formulated
differential calculus they effectively made use of the concept of an infinitesimal,
which they referred to as an infinitely small number. At that time before nonstandard analysis, the concept of infinitesimals was very fuzzy and bothered many
mathematicians. However, the concept of infinitesimals was essential to the
development of differential calculus.[10]
Newton's method involved taking ratios of infinitesimals. Those terms for the ratio
that which had an infinitesimal as a factor were treated as zero and thus the
product of infinitesimals is equal to zero. He explained it, terms which have [an
infinitesimal] as a factor will be equivalent to nothing in respect to the others. I
therefore cast them out Ultimately Cauchy, Weierstrass, and Riemann,
reformulated Calculus in terms of limits rather than infinitesimals. Therefore, the

need for these infinitely small (and nonexistent) quantities was removed, and
replaced by a notion of quantities being "close" to others. So the derivative and the
integral were both reformulated in terms of limits. [11]
In the nineteenth century the German mathematician Karl Weierstrass introduced
the epsilon-delta process, which provided a rigorous basis for Calculus and
discouraged students from using the infinitesimal concept. Then in 1960 Abraham
Robinson found a way to provide a foundation for infinitesimals and thus
infinitesimals were acceptable. Robinson called his formulation non-standard
analysis. The purpose of this material is to explain, illustrate and justify the nonstandard analysis formulation of infinitesimals.[10]