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It is useful to figure out which summation methods produce the geometric series formula for which common ratios. One application for this information is the so-called Borel-Okada principle: If a regular summation method assigns = to / for all in a subset of the complex plane, given certain restrictions on , then the method also gives the analytic continuation of any other function () = = on ...
Those methods work on oscillating divergent series, but they cannot produce a finite answer for a series that diverges to +∞. [6] Most of the more elementary definitions of the sum of a divergent series are stable and linear, and any method that is both stable and linear cannot sum 1 + 2 + 3 + ⋯ to a finite value (see § Heuristics below).
The geometric series is an infinite series derived from a special type of sequence called a geometric progression.This means that it is the sum of infinitely many terms of geometric progression: starting from the initial term , and the next one being the initial term multiplied by a constant number known as the common ratio .
This integral converges for all z ≥ 0, so the original divergent series is Borel summable for all such z. This function has an asymptotic expansion as z tends to 0 that is given by the original divergent series. This is a typical example of the fact that Borel summation will sometimes "correctly" sum divergent asymptotic expansions. Again, since
Ramanujan summation is a technique invented by the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan for assigning a value to divergent infinite series.Although the Ramanujan summation of a divergent series is not a sum in the traditional sense, it has properties that make it mathematically useful in the study of divergent infinite series, for which conventional summation is undefined.
There are several different summation methods called zeta function regularization for defining the sum of a possibly divergent series a 1 + a 2 + ..... One method is to define its zeta regularized sum to be ζ A (−1) if this is defined, where the zeta function is defined for large Re(s) by
For some other divergent geometric series, including Grandi's series with ratio −1, and the series 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + ⋯ with ratio 2, one can use the general solution for the sum of a geometric series with base 1 and ratio , obtaining , but this summation method fails for 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + ⋯, producing a division by zero.
This sum became an object of particular ridicule by Niels Henrik Abel in 1826: Divergent series are on the whole devil's work, and it is a shame that one dares to found any proof on them. One can get out of them what one wants if one uses them, and it is they which have made so much unhappiness and so many paradoxes.