Challenging Product

Calculus Level 3

n = 1 n 2 + 13 n n 2 + 13 n + 40 \prod _{ n=1 }^{ \infty }{ \frac { { n }^{ 2 }+13n }{ { n }^{ 2 }+13n+40 } }

Given that the product above converges to the value a b \dfrac { a }{ b } , where a a and b b are coprime positive integers, evaluate a + b a+b .


The answer is 1288.

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1 solution

Zico Quintina
Jun 17, 2018

We factor the term

n 2 + 13 n n 2 + 13 n + 40 = n ( n + 13 ) ( n + 5 ) ( n + 8 ) \dfrac{n^2 + 13n}{n^2 + 13n + 40} = \dfrac{n (n + 13)}{(n + 5)(n + 8)}

and then patiently write out the first several terms until we notice cancellations:

1 1̸4 9 2 1̸5 10 3 1̸6 11 4 17 9 12 5 18 10 13 19 11 1̸4 20 12 1̸5 21 13 1̸6 . . . . \dfrac{1 \cdot \not{14}}{\not{6} \cdot 9} \cdot \dfrac{2 \cdot \not{15}}{\not{7} \cdot 10} \cdot \dfrac{3 \cdot \not{16}}{\not{8} \cdot 11} \cdot \dfrac{4 \cdot 17}{9 \cdot 12} \cdot \dfrac{5 \cdot 18}{10 \cdot 13} \cdot \dfrac{\not{6} \cdot 19}{11 \cdot \not{14}} \cdot \dfrac{\not{7} \cdot 20}{12 \cdot \not{15}} \cdot \dfrac{\not{8} \cdot 21}{13 \cdot \not{16}} \cdot \ ....

At that point it's not difficult to see that the only factors to survive are 1 2 3 4 5 1 \cdot 2 \cdot 3 \cdot 4 \cdot 5 in the numerators and 9 10 11 12 13 9 \cdot 10 \cdot 11 \cdot 12 \cdot 13 in the denominators, so the infinite product converges to

1 2 3 4 5 9 10 11 12 13 = 1 1287 \dfrac{1 \cdot 2 \cdot 3 \cdot 4 \cdot 5}{9 \cdot 10 \cdot 11 \cdot 12 \cdot 13} = \dfrac{1}{1287}

and our answer is 1 + 1287 = 1288 1 + 1287 = \boxed{1288}

So this pattern repeats?

Aman thegreat - 2 years, 11 months ago

Yes, it does; I considered adding a few more fractions to the string but then so many factors would be crossed out I thought it would be hard to see which ones were cancelling which. I've posted a couple of notes asking for help with how to show this better, possibly with colors; hopefully someone will have some suggestions.

zico quintina - 2 years, 11 months ago

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