ITE 1701-Mathematics for IT Week 13

Lesson 23 - Sequence and their properties

Introduction

Week 13 is about the topic of Sequences. This week has just one Lesson,
Lesson 23. In this lesson you will learn about definition of sequences and their
properties as convergence and divergence of sequences.

Learning outcome

After completing this lesson, you should be able to define sequence and
their properties. Therefore you will be able to,
• Identify convergent and divergent sequences
• Determine convergence or divergent of sequence using basic theorem

23.1 Sequences

A sequence is a list of numbers written in a specific order. The list may or

may not have an infinite number of terms. Below is a sequence.
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64… Here … represent that the numbers
continue in the sequence.

This sequence can also be written as

21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26,…………..
Therefore, nth term or the general term of the sequence, denoted by an, can
be written as 2n.

23.2 Finite and Infinite sequences

If sequence has finite number of terms then it’s called as finite sequence. For
example {1, 2, 3, 4… 10} is a finite sequence. In contrast, if a sequence has

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ITE 1701-Mathematics for IT Week 13

infinite number of terms then it’s called as an infinite sequence. Infinite

sequence is denoted as either {an}, {a1, a2, a3 …} or {an }n =1

∞

Example 23.1
Write down the first few terms of each of the following sequences.
∞
 n + 1
(1)  2 
 n  n =1
∞
 (−1) n +1 
(2)  n 
 2  n =0

Answers
∞
 n + 1
(1) Consider  2  . To get the first few sequence terms here all we
 n  n =1
need to do is plug in values of n into the formula given.

 n + 1
When n =1 ,  2  = 2 = the first term of this sequence
 n 
 n + 1 3
When n =2 ,  2  = = the second term of this sequence
 n  4
 n + 1 4
When n =3 ,  2  = = the third term of this sequence
 n  9
Like wise other terms can also be calculated.

Thus the first few terms can be written as, {2, ¾, 4/9 …}

∞
 (−1) n +1 
(2) Consider  n  . Use the similar procedure in the above.
 2  n =0

 (−1) n +1 
When n =0,  n  = −1 = the first term of this sequence
 2 

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 (−1) n +1  1
When n =1 ,  n  = = the second term of this sequence
 2  2

 (−1) n +1  − 1
When n =2,  n = = the third term of this sequence
 2  4
Likewise substituting values for n other terms can also be calculated.

Thus the first few terms of this sequence can be written as, {-1, ½, -1/4 …}

Example 23.2
Find a formula for a sequence that has the following initial terms:

1 1 1 1 1
1,− , ,− , ,− ,....
4 9 16 25 36

Solution
Note that the denominator of each term is a perfect square. When we move
along the sequence, we can observe that the sign of a term changes from sign
of its previous term.
1 1 1 1 1
So above sequence ca be rewritten as 1,− 2
, 2 ,− 2 , 2 ,− 2 ,....
2 3 4 5 6
±1
Let an be the general term or nth term of the sequence. Thus an = .
n2

Perhaps better formula can be developed as follows. In the above since,

numerator is +1 when n is odd and –1 when n is even. To achieve this
oscillation, insert a factor of (-1)n+1 into the formula for an
Consequently, an explicit formula that gives the correct first six terms is
(−1) n +1
an = for all integers n ≥ 1.
n2

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From the Example 23.1, we saw that, once we know the general term (nth
term) of a sequence we can find the terms of such sequence by assigning
integer value to n. This shows we were really treating the formulas or general
term as functions that can only have integers plugged into them. Therefore we
can write such general term as a function of n.

23.3 Convergent and Divergent sequences

The behavior of sequence can be studies by graphing such sequence. To graph

the sequence , we plot the points as n ranges over all possible values
on a graph.

∞
 n + 1
For instance, let’s graph the sequence  2  . The first few points on the
 n 0
graph are then,

and graph is given below.

Notice that as n increases the sequence terms, get closer and closer to zero.
This shows that limit of a sequence can also be realized as a limit of a function
that we discussed in Week 11.

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Definition
If lim a n exists and it is finite then the sequence is convergent.
n →∞

If lim a n is doesn’t exists or infinite then the sequence is divergent.

n →∞

23.4 Theorems on Sequences

Here you learn some basic theorems on limits of sequences.

Theorem 1
Given the sequence {an} if we have a function f(x), such that f(n) = an and
lim f ( x) = L then lim a n = L
x →∞ n →∞

Properties
1. lim (a ± b ) = lim a ± lim b
n→∞ n n n→∞ n n→∞ n
2. lim c(a ) = c lim an
n→∞ n n→∞
  
3. lim (a b ) =  lim a  lim b 
n → ∞ n n  n → ∞ n  n → ∞ n 
 
 lim an 
a
4. lim ( n ) =  n → ∞  Provided that lim bn ≠ 0
n→∞ b   n→∞
n  lim bn 
n → ∞ 
Example 23.3
Determine if the following sequences converge or diverge. If the sequence
converges determine its limit.

∞
1 
(i)  
 n  n =1
∞
 3n 2 − 1 
(ii)  2 
10n + 5n  n = 2

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Answer

∞
1 
(i) Consider the sequence  
 n  n =1
1 1
Let f(x) = then f(n) =
x n
1
According to the theorem 1, lim f ( x) = lim  = 0 and therefore
x →∞ x
x →∞
 
1
lim an = lim  = 0 , Thus the sequence is convergent.
n →∞ n
n →∞
 

∞
 3n 2 − 1 
(ii) Consider the sequence  2 
10n + 5n  n = 2

 3n 2 − 1 
As in the above we can identify f(n) =  2
10n + 5n 
1
 n 2 (3 − 1 n 2 )  lim (3 − 2 )
 3n 2 − 1   (3 − 1 n 2 )  n → ∞ n 3
lim   = lim   = lim  10 = =
n → ∞ 10 n + 5 n 2
  n → ∞  n 2 (10 + 5 
 
n→∞
 n( + 5  lim  10  5
n
+ 5
n→∞
 n 
So the sequence is convergent and its limit is 3/5.

Theorem 2

If lim a n = 0 then lim a n = 0 .

n →∞ n →∞

Example 23.4
∞
 (−1) n 
Determine whether the sequence   is convergent or divergent.
 n  n =1

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(−1) n 1
To solve this problem you need to calculate, lim = lim = 0
n →∞ n n →∞ n

Therefore it is clear that, the limit of the sequence terms with absolute value

 (−1) n 
bars on them goes to zero. Applying theorem 2, we can get lim   = 0.
n →∞
 n 
So that, the given sequence convergence to zero.

Theorem 3

The sequence r n { }∞
n =1 converges if − 1 < r ≤ 1 and diverges for all other values of

0 if − 1 < r < 1
r. Also lim r n = 
n →∞
1 if r = 1

Example 23.5

Determine whether the sequence {(−1) }n ∞

n =1 is divergent or convergent.

Answer
For this theorem note that all you need to do is realize that this is the
sequence in Theorem 3 above using r = −1. So, by Theorem 3 this sequence
diverges.

Activity 23.1
Determine whether the following sequences converge or diverge. If the sequence converges
determine its limit.

∞ ∞
 n 
(i)  
2
(ii)  2  {
(iii) ( −1) }
n +1 ∞
n =1
 n + 1 n =1  n  n =5
Check your answer

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Sequence in computing world

Sequences are heavily used in computing. For example, letters in word also
form a sequence. Some sequence of letters (e.g. abdcrsd) does not give a
meaningful word. On the other hand data structure such as ordered arrays is an
example for a sequence in computing. You will be using the concept of
sequence in various modules in the degree programme.

Exercise 23.1

Determine whether the following sequences converge or diverge. If the sequence converges
determine its limit.
∞
 e 2n 
1.  
 n  n =1
∞
 n3 
2.  4 
 n + 10000  n =1
∞
1
3.  3 
 n  n =1

Summary

This lesson covered Sequences and their properties. So you learned about the
concept of convergent and divergent sequences and how you can apply the
concept of sequence in computing world. Next lesson (Lesson 24) you will
learn another new topic called Series.

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