How do you find the limit of mathematical series ?

2 Answers
Nov 11, 2016

That depends on the series. There are several different kinds of techniques we can use for the different types of series.

Explanation:

Do you have any examples?

Nov 12, 2016

This series does not converge (it does not have a limit).

Explanation:

The series in question is the sum of 1/sqrt(2+n)12+n from n=1n=1 to oo, which can be expressed in summation notation as:
sum_(n=1)^oo 1/sqrt(2+n)n=112+n

The first few terms are:
1/sqrt(2+1)+1/sqrt(2+2)+1/sqrt(2+3)+1/sqrt(2+4)...
=1/sqrt3+1/2+1/sqrt5+1/sqrt6...

At first glance, the series seems to converge - which means after you take all of its terms and add them up, you get a number. However, take a look at this series:
sum_(n=1)^oo 1/n

The first few terms are:
1/1+1/2+1/3+1/4...

This is called the harmonic series, and it is known to diverge - i.e. the sum keeps getting bigger and bigger as n goes to oo.

Compare the first few terms of the harmonic series with our series:
1/1+1/2+1/3+1/4...
1/sqrt3+1/2+1/sqrt5+1/sqrt6...

Our series is bigger than the harmonic series after 1/2 (1/sqrt5>1/3, 1/sqrt6>1/4, in general 1/sqrt(n+2)>1/n for n>2).

What this means is that our series is larger than the divergent harmonic series, so the sum of our series should be larger than the sum of the harmonic series . But that means our series diverges too - it will just get bigger and bigger as n goes to oo. Thus, the limit of this series is oo - in other words, it does not exist. Keep in mind that this isn't an especially rigorous proof, but it works.