Infinite Surds Sample Portfolio Task

???? Math SL February 8, 2008

Part 1: The Infinite Surd

1.1 Patterns with

In this section, we are looking for the exact value of the infinite surd order to do this, we are considering a sequence of surds of the form:

etc. Investigating these terms reveals a pattern. Since follows that . and

Using a GDC, I found the following values for the first ten terms of the sequence.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1.414213562 1.553773974 1.598053182 1.611847754 1.616121207 1.617442799 1.617851291 1.617977531 1.618016542 1.618028597

I used Corel Quattro Pro to produce the following graph of the relation between n and

The term values seem to be approaching approximately 1.61803 (also known as the golden number or ). The difference between a term and its predecessor becomes smaller and smaller will get smaller

as n gets larger. This suggests that as n gets very large the difference and smaller until it is effectively zero.

In other words, as n approaches infinity

, and therefore

Since infinite surd.

, we can use our formula for

to find the v

1.2 Finding the exact value of the infinite surd

Let approaches infinity.

with a very large n value. We could also say that

, since

We know that

, so as n approaches infinity:

We can use the quadratic formula to solve for x (which is the value of the infinite surd).

Since the value of the surd cannot be negative, we reject infinite surd is

. Therefore, the value of the . Since

previous observations about the sequence and seems reasonable.

Part 2: The Infinite Surd

2.1 Patterns in the sequence In this section, we are looking for the exact value of the infinite surd In order to do this, we are considering a sequence of surds of the form:

etc.

As in the first investigation, there is a pattern.. Since follows that .

and

Using a GDC, I found the following values for the first ten terms of the sequence.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1.847759065 1.961570561 1.990369453 1.997590912 1.999397637 1.999849404 1.999962351 1.999990588 1.999997647 1.999999412

Once again, I used Corel Quattro Pro to produce the following graph of the relation between n and .

The term values seem to be approaching 2. Again, the difference between a term and its predecessor becomes smaller and smaller as n gets larger.

2.2 Finding the exact value of the infinite surd

As with the previous example, let , since

with a very large n value. We could also say that as n approaches infinity.

We know that

, so as n approaches infinity:

Factoring, we get

which yields solutions of

and

since the value of the surd cannot be negative, we reject -1. Therefore, the value of the infinite surd sequence in the both the graph and table in section 2.1.

is 2. This agrees with our previous observations about the

Part 3: The Infinite Surd

As in the previous two examples, we will consider a sequence of surds. This time they will take the form:

etc. It is important to note that this form only applies to solutions. Also, if if we restrict ourselves to real number

, then the value of the infinite surd is 0. Therefore we will only

consider k values that are greater than 0.

This time the pattern is very small as n gets large, it follows that

. Since the difference between as n approaches infinity.

and

Let infinity:

for some very large n. We know that

, so as

Using the quadratic formula, we get the solution possible, the value of the infinite surd explanation for not including 0 will follow in section 5).

. Since the negative solution is not is

fo

Part 4: Infinite surds that are integers

We know that integer value for any k which yields an integer in the expression is an integer for .

. The infinite s

4.1 k values whose infinite surds are integers

We can begin by finding the k value whose infinite surd is equal to 0. It is immediately obvious that integer 0 when . yields a result of 0. Therefore,

Next, we will find the k value whose infinite surd is equal to 3. Since the value of the infinite surd is given by solving the following equation. , we can find the k that results in an infinite surd with a value of 3 by

Therefore, the infinite surd

Lets find the k value whose infinite surd is equal to 4.

Therefore, the infinite surd

Lets find the k value whose infinite surd is equal to 5.

Therefore, the infinite surd

4.2 The general statement for all k whose infinite surds are integers

So far, we have found that the k values 0, 2, 6, 12, 20 yield integers in the expression . general statement for

These numbers follow a pattern that can be outli

(or where n is a positive integer

4.3 Testing the general statement

The previous general statement was obtained from a pattern of only 5 numbers. Lets check to see if it holds true for other n values. We will check the next two numbers in the pattern, , then a larger number, . and

4.3a Testing Since , we will check it in the expression . We want to make sure that the

expression yields an integer. Lets check by substituting 30 for k.

Since the result is an integer, true.

and the general

4.3b Testing Since , we will check it in the expression . Again, we want to make sure that

the expression yields an integer.

Since result is an integer,

and the general sta

4.3c Testing

This time

so we will check to see if the expression yields an integer.

The result is an integer. Therefore statement works.

4.3d Testing

If we test

, then where

where n is a positive integer. We will simplify the expressio .

The expression simplifies to n. This means that if k is obtained from the general term, the corresponding infinite surd will yield an integer. Apparently, our general statement holds true for all n that are positive integers.

The general term values of n.

yields infinite surds that are integers for all positive integer

5 Scope and limitations of the general statement

The general statement

gives us all k values where .

integer. However, these k values do not all work in the expression

5. 1 Investigating

The infinite surd included in my general term expression

is obviously equal to 0. Although, the k value , its infinite surd is not accurately described by the . If we substitute 0 for k we get the following result:

Since value of this infinite surd.

is not equal to 1, the expression

does n

It is interesting to note that the (initially rejected) expression this infinite surd. However, this is the only surd for which

does represent the value of is appropriate.

Again, since the value of

is immediately obvious, it seems unne

to modify the expression for the sake of this surd. Instead, we should say that is an integer when the surd: i) has a value of for all positive values of k ,

ii) has a value of 0 if

iii) is undefined if

5.2 Simplifying

when it yields an integer

A pattern seems to emerge for the value of the infinite surd obtained from the general statement. If we use (or 30) for k, then the corresponding infinite surd has a value of 6. If we use (or 420) for k, then (or

12) for k, then the corresponding infinite surd has a value of 4. If we use the corresponding infinite surd has a value of 21. It seems that when of the infinite surd will be . Again, an exception occurs for

the val (the k value of zero)

We have shown that this is true for several specific n values in section 4.3a, 4.3b, and 4.3c. In 4.3d, we showed that the expression simplifies to n as long as k takes the form

. In other words, section 4.3d shows that as long as k is obtained from the general term, the infinite surd

. We must stipulate that n needs (the k

integer greater than 1 because, as we outlined in section 5.1, there is an exception for value of 0).

5.3 Arriving at the general statement

In section 4.2 I found that the k values of 0, 2, 6, 12, 20 gave integer values for their respective infinite surds. Initially, I used a guess and test method to find a pattern and hence a general term. I noticed that Generally, the pattern was , , ,

. Testing this general statement in section 4 showed

that it seemed to work for all positive integer values of n. However, since I obtained my general statement from just a few examples, I did investigate another method for finding the general term.

If we want to find the k values that give us infinite surds that are integers we could set up an equation , where n is a postive integer. Now we can solve for k.

This means that for an infinite surd to have an integer value, its k must be of the form where n is a positive integer, hence the general statement .

,f

5.4 Rational infinite surds Just as some integer values of k yield integer results for some rational values of k will yield rational results for the infinite surd.

, we e

Lets consider this sequence:

If we continue the sequence for the first ten terms, then we get the following decimal approximations using Microsoft Excel.
n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0.666666667 1.054092553 1.224147458 1.291739874 1.317643472 1.327436596 1.33112022 1.332503157 1.333021981 1.333216571

It appears that our values are approaching expression

or the rational number

. We can use the

to find the exact value of the infinite surd

If we substitute

for k we get

. This

confirms our suspicion that the infinite surd

Now we can apply the same method we used in section 5.3 to determine a formula for rational infinite surds. A rational number takes the form where a and b are both integers. We

will only consider positive rational numbers since negative numbers do not have a square root and we have already dealt with 0. If we want our infinite surd to have a rational value, then must be rational.

Let

be a positive rational number. We can solve the following equation to determine which

types of k values will yield infinite surds that are rational.

According to our work above, any positive k value of the form

where a and b are positive

integers should yield a rational value for positive, a must be greater than b.

. In order for

We can test this by trying some values for a and b. Lets try , this gives us a k value of .

and

. Since

The following values were obtained from Microsoft Excel for the corresponding sequence .

n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0.748331477 1.143823184 1.305305782 1.365761979 1.387718263 1.395606772 1.39843011 1.399439213 1.399799704 1.399928464

According to the formula sequence is approaching number seems to work.

, the infinite surd (or 1.4), our formula for finding an infinite surd that is a rational

To sum up, an infinite surd

is a rational number if

where and . The set of integer solutions is contained in this statement since integer is simply a rational number with a denominator (or b value) of 1.