Partial Sums

A Partial Sum is a Sum of Part of a Sequence.

Example:
This is the Sequence of even numbers: {2,

4, 6, 8, 10, 12, ...}

This is the Partial Sum of the first 4 terms of that sequence: 2+4+6+8

= 20

Let us define things a little better now:

A Sequence is a set of things (usually numbers) that are in order.

A Partial Sum is the sum of part of the sequence

Language Note: Partial Sums are sometimes called "Finite Series"

(a "Series" is the sum of an infinite sequence).
(Note: The sum of infinite terms is an Infinite Series.)

Sigma
Partial Sums are often written using to mean "add them all up":

This symbol (called Sigma) means "sum up"

So

means to sum things up ...

Sum What?
Sum whatever appears after the Sigma:

so we sum n

But What is the Value of n ?

The values are shown below
and above the Sigma:

OK, Let's Go ...

So now we add up 1,2,3 and 4:

Here it is in one diagram:

it says n goes from 1 to 4,

which is 1, 2, 3 and 4

More Powerful
But can do more powerful things than that!
We could square n each time and sum the result:

We could "add up the first four terms in the sequence 2n+1":

And we don't have to use n. Here we use i and sum up i (i+1), going from 1 to 3:

And we can start and end with any number. Here we go from 3 to 5:

Properties
Partial Sums have some useful properties that can help us do the calculations.

Multiplying by a Constant Property

Say we have something we want to sum up, let's call it

ak

ak could be k2, or k(k-7)+2, or ... anything really

And c is some constant value (like 2, or -9.1, etc), then:

In other words: if every term we are summing is multiplied by a constant, we can "pull" the
constant outside the sigma.

Example:

So instead of summing 6k2 we can sum k2 and then multiply the whole result by 6

Adding or Subtracting Property

Here is another useful fact:

Which means that when two terms are added together, and we want to sum them up, we
can actually sum them separately and then add the results.

Example:

It is going to be easier to do the two sums and then add them at the end.

Note this also works for subtraction:

Useful Shortcuts
And here are some useful shortcuts that make the sums a lot easier.
In each case we are trying to sum from 1 to some value n.

Summing 1 equals n

Summing the constant c equals c times n

A shortcut when summing k

A shortcut when summing k2

A shortcut when summing k3

Let's use some of those:

Example 1: You sell concrete blocks for landscaping.

A customer says they will buy the entire "pyramid" of blocks you keep out front. The stack is
14 blocks high.
How many blocks are in there?

Each layer is a square, so the calculation is:

12 + 22 + 32 + ... + 142
But this can be written much more easily as:

We can use the formula for k2 from above:

That was a lot easier than adding up 12 + 22 + 32 + ... + 142.

And here is a more complicated example:

Example 2: The customer wants a better price.

The customer says the blocks on the outside of the pyramid should be cheaper, as they
need cleaning.
You agree to:

$7 for outer blocks

and $11 for inner blocks.

What is the total cost?

You can calculate how many "inner" and "outer" blocks in any layer (except the first) using

outer blocks = 4(size-1)

inner blocks = (size-2)2

And so the cost per layer is:

cost (outer blocks) = $7 4(size-1)

cost (inner blocks) = $11 (size-2)2

So all layers together (except first) will cost:

Now we have the sum, let us try to make the calculations easier!

Using the "Addition Property" from above:

Using the "Multiply by Constant Property" from above:

That is good ... but we can't use any shortcuts as it is, as we are going from i=2 instead
of i=1
HOWEVER, if we invent two new variables:

j = i-1

k = i-2

We have:

(I dropped the k=0 case, because I know that 02=0)

And now we can use the shortcuts:

After a little calculation:

$7 364 + $11 650 = $9,698.00

Oh! And don't forget the top layer (size=1) which is just one block. Maybe you can give
them that one for free, you are so generous!

Note: as a check, when we add the "outer" and "inner" blocks, plus the one on top, we get
364 + 650 + 1 = 1015