I've been studying arithmetic sequences and am finding that I can do the formulas, but can't truly understand until I can do a long-form version of the formula.
Let's take the below:
a5 = 2+2(5-1)
I can do 2+2+2+2+2 to get to 10 or following the sequence step by step I can do 2,4,6,8,10. But how would I calculate these answers on something like a basic calculator?
Edit: In case unclear, I'm asking for the non-formulaic version to calculate what, given the above, would write as an = a1 + d (n - 1).
Edit 2: Okay, say I give you any arithmetic sequence formula such as shown above, and I hand you a calculator as basic as the one shown in this image. How do you solve it? You don't just do a1 + a2 + a3 ... ad infinitum. How do you solve for it? All the more advanced calculators and services online provide none of the step-by-step process, so you get the final answer without understanding a thing, and there has to be a more effective way than just adding or subtracting to the nth term.
Answer
So the formula an=a1+d(n−1)
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