seems simple but not at all

A sequence of positive integers is constructed as follows: the first term is 1, the following two terms are 2, 4, the following three terms are 5, 7, 9, the following four terms are 10, 12, 14, 16, etc.

Find the n-th term of the sequence.

3 Answers

9
Celestine preetham ·

really nice Q of olympiad level

ans cum out to be

2n - 1 - [(√8n-7 - 1)/2]

where [] is GINT

1
Samarth Kashyap ·

wow cele[134][134][134][134][134]
how did u actually think of the ans..... its definitely not trial and error....
cud u explain how u arrived at it.

9
Celestine preetham ·

lets represent series as

1
24
579
....
.....
........ r th row

now let term n be in r+1 th row

its obviously

2n- 1 -r

now
r(r+1)/2 +1 ≤ n < 1 + (r+1)(r+2)/2 so that n is in r+1 th row

simplifying
8n-7 - 3 < 2r ≤ √8n-7 - 1

ie in other words r = [(√8n-7 - 1)/2]

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