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A Square Root Series

SLD

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I did this series all the way up to 100 and found it to converge on 1.661688. But what's so special about that number? anything? Or maybe I should do the series only from 2 forward, or even three, and that might show a more interesting convergence to a more mathematically relevant number.

2 converges to 2.761207 and 3 converges to 3.812132.

 
Square root 2 is 1.414...

So if you are not getting close there may be something wrong somewhere.

2 converges to 2.761207 and 3 converges to 3.812132.

It looks like you are ending up with 2*sqrt(x). Did you leave off a /2 somewhere in the series? If you posted the series my browser is not showing it.

Calculators use series to compute functions.
 
I checked that calculation with Mathematica, and it is indeed correct. Why does it converge?

It's essentially
\( \displaystyle{ sld(n) = \prod_{k=0}^\infty (n+k)^{1/2^{k+1}} } \)

Turning this product into a sum with logarithms gives
\( \displaystyle{ \log sld(n) = \sum_{k=0}^\infty \frac{1}{2^{k+1}} \log(n+k) } \)

That infinite series can easily be shown to converge.

After a lot of searching, I found  Lerch zeta function with the "Lerch transcendent"
\( \displaystyle{ \Phi(z,s,a) = \sum_{k=0}^\infty \frac{z^k}{(k+a)^s} } \)

Take the derivative with respect to s:
\( \displaystyle{ \frac{d}{ds} \Phi(z,s,a) = - \sum_{k=0}^\infty \frac{z^k}{(k+a)^s} \log(k+a) } \)

So
\( \displaystyle{ \log sld(n) = - \frac12 \left. \frac{d}{ds} \Phi(1/2,s,n) \right|_{s=0} } \)

Mathematica has the LerchPhi function, and was able to calculate its derivative.
 
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Square root 2 is 1.414...

So if you are not getting close there may be something wrong somewhere.

2 converges to 2.761207 and 3 converges to 3.812132.

It looks like you are ending up with 2*sqrt(x). Did you leave off a /2 somewhere in the series? If you posted the series my browser is not showing it.

Calculators use series to compute functions.
It doesn't converge to the square root of two. That would require the series ending at 3 to converge to 1.

I did the calculation on excel. Pretty sure it's right.
 
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