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From: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: series sum
Message-ID: <11614@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 30-Jan-86 03:27:29 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11614
Posted: Thu Jan 30 03:27:29 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 03:11:07 EST
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Reply-To: weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener)
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>Regarding the sum of the sums of the first k integers k goes from 1 to n:
>How many out there solved it by considerring the volume contained in a 
>maximal corner of a cube of size n (the largest volume that you can get by
>cutting off a corner of a cube without removing any other corners).  
>A little thought will make the relationship between the mathematical
>and geometric entities obvious.  (Of course this is high school math 
>(I was doing this kind of stuff in high school anyway)).  

And how many solved it by:
 inverse finite differences?
 Newton interpolation?
 finding a cubic spline?
 undetermined coefficients?
 using Pade approximants?
 identifying the generating function?
 Euler-Maclaurin summation?
 running symbolic algebra software?
 looking it up in a book?
 recalling the answer instantly?

Who said the problem had to be easy?

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720