Tuesday, 28 May 2013

real analysis - Did I compute the limit of of the sequence xn+1=fracxnxn+1,xo=1 properly?



I need to study the limit behavior of xn+1=xnxn+1,xo=1 and if the limit exists, compute the limit. I observed the first few terms and it seemed that the sequence was decreasing so I decided to show that the sequence was monotonic:



Need to show xn+1xn which is equivalent to showing xn+1xn0
xn+1xn=xnxn+1xn=xnxn(xn+1)xn+1=(xn)2xn+1=(xn)2xn+10 for all n if xn0 which can be proved by induction:

xo=10x1=1/20
xn=>xn+1
xn+1=xnxn+1>1xn+1>0 because xn>0. (I don't know if that was the proper way to do the induction. Any confirmation?)



Since it was proved that xn0, xn+1xn=(xn)2xn+10, thus the sequence is monotone and decreasing. The sequence is also bounded:



Since the sequence is decreasing it is bounded above by 1, and because xn0 the sequence id bounded below by 0.



The boundedness and monotonicity of the sequence implies that a limit exists:




Let limxn=x. Because limxn=limxn+1, x=xx+1<=>x(x+1)=x<=>x+1=1=>x=0 So 0 is the limit.



I'm not sure if there are problem in the work that I did and any help would be greatly appreciated.






I don't know if I should start a new question for this, so I've included it here anyways:
Since one was able to tell that the limxn=lim11+n for the above sequence, should one try to do the same thing with the sequence xn+1=(xn)2xn+1, xo=1?


Answer



There’s a small error in your proof that xn0 for all n: it’s not true that




xnxn+1>1xn+1,



since in fact it turns out that xn1 for all n. However, given the induction hypothesis that xn0, you certainly have\



xn+1=xnxn+10,



which is all you need here. Otherwise it looks fine.



Note that if you calculate the first few values, you find that x1=12, x2=13, and x3=14, suggesting that in general xn=1n+1. An alternative approach would be to show by induction that this is true for all n0; this is not at all difficult.



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