Specific question: according to my calculation based on Timbuc's answer to this question,
n∑k=0k(k+1)2=n(n+1)(2n+4)12=n(n+1)(n+2)6
[Edit: RHS simplified based on suggestion from herbsteinberg.]
If this is right, is there an intuitive or geometric proof of this?
Background and motivation: I'm trying to relate the concepts of integration and summation using reasoning which I find simple and intuitive.
As part of that, I'm trying to understand the process of summing sequences in this rotated section of Pascal's triangle:
(0)010101010101...k00!(1)010203040506...k+01!(2)010306101521...k(k+1)2!(3)010410203556...k(k+1)(k+2)3!
I see that summing each line seems to increase the degree of the expression by 1 and I can imagine that rearrangement, simplification and/or a limit process could later reduce these terms to k22, k33 etc., but for now I'm interested in how/why each line has the exact expression it does.
Line (1) is just counting.
Line (2) I can picture and understand as in Fig. 1 below.
Fig. 1
Line (3) [Edited to add the following, which may start to answer my question] I can picture and understand as a stepped version of the right-angled tetraga in Fig. 2 below.
Fig. 2
No comments:
Post a Comment