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Examples

Many well-known series, including those that are encountered in
elementary calculus courses, are hypergeometric. For instance,
McLauren series for $ e^x$:

Example 1  

$\displaystyle e^x = 1 + x + \frac{x^2}{2!} + \cdots = \sum_{k=0}^\infty \frac{x^k}{k!}$    

The ratio $ F(x,k+1)/F(x,k) = \frac{x}{k+1}$, is clearly a rational
function of $ x$ and $ k$, so we can write:

$\displaystyle e^x = {}_{0}\mathrm{F}_{0} \left[ \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{-}{-} ; {x} \right]$    

Here are two more examples:

Example 2  
$\displaystyle \sin x$ $\displaystyle =$ $\displaystyle x - \frac{x^3}{3!} + \frac{x^5}{5!} - \dots
= \sum_{k=0}^\infty \...
...)!}
= x\sum_{k=0}^\infty
\frac{(-1)^k x^{2k} }{(2k+1)!}
\frac{F(n,k+1)}{F(n,k)}$  
  $\displaystyle =$ $\displaystyle \frac{-x^2}{(2k+2)(2k+3)} = \frac{-x^2}{4}
\frac{1}{(k+1)(k+3/2)},$  

so

$\displaystyle \sin x = x  {}_{0}\mathrm{F}_{1}
\left[ \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{-}{3/2} ; {\frac{-x^2}{4}} \right] .$

Example 3  
$\displaystyle \arctan x$ $\displaystyle =$ $\displaystyle x- \frac{x^3}{3} + \frac{x^5}{5}-\dots = \sum_{k=0}^\infty
\frac{...
...}{2k+1} = x \sum_{k=0}^\infty
\frac{(-1)^kx^(2k)}{2k+1}
\frac{F(n,k+1)}{F(n,k)}$  
  $\displaystyle =$ $\displaystyle \frac{-x^2 (2k+1)}{2k+3} \frac{k+1}{k+1},$  

so

$\displaystyle \arctan x = x  {}_{2}\mathrm{F}_{1}
\left[ \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1/2,1}{3/2} ; {-x^2} \right] .$


next up previous
Next: The WZ Method Up: Automated Proofs of Combinatorial Previous: Definitions
Math Guest 1 2004-08-10