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In the mathematics of convergent and divergent series, Euler summation is a summation method. That is, it is a method for assigning a value to a series, different from the conventional method of taking limits of partial sums. Given a series Σa n, if its Euler transform converges to a sum, then that sum is called the Euler sum of the original ...
For example, many asymptotic expansions are derived from the formula, and Faulhaber's formula for the sum of powers is an immediate consequence. The formula was discovered independently by Leonhard Euler and Colin Maclaurin around 1735. Euler needed it to compute slowly converging infinite series while Maclaurin used it to calculate integrals.
The idea becomes clearer by considering the general series 1 − 2x + 3x 2 − 4x 3 + 5x 4 − 6x 5 + &c. that arises while expanding the expression 1 ⁄ (1+x) 2, which this series is indeed equal to after we set x = 1. [12]
Euler's Proof That 1 + 2 + 3 + ⋯ = −1/12 – by John Baez; John Baez (September 19, 2008). "My Favorite Numbers: 24" (PDF). The Euler-Maclaurin formula, Bernoulli numbers, the zeta function, and real-variable analytic continuation by Terence Tao; A recursive evaluation of zeta of negative integers by Luboš Motl
The sum of the reciprocal of the primes increasing without bound. The x axis is in log scale, showing that the divergence is very slow. The red function is a lower bound that also diverges.
Because it is a divergent series, it should be interpreted as a formal sum, an abstract mathematical expression combining the unit fractions, rather than as something that can be evaluated to a numeric value. There are many different proofs of the divergence of the harmonic series, surveyed in a 2006 paper by S. J. Kifowit and T. A. Stamps. [13]
Ramanujan summation is a method of assigning a value to divergent series used by Ramanujan and based on the Euler–Maclaurin summation formula. The Ramanujan sum of a series f(0) + f(1) + ... depends not only on the values of f at integers, but also on values of the function f at non-integral points, so it is not really a summation method in ...
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 ...