Generating a non-Wolfram problem

Algebra Level 5

k = 0 ( 4 k ) ! 1 6 k ( 2 k ) ! ( 2 k + 1 ) ! = ? \sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac {(4k)!}{16^k (2k)! (2k+1)!} = \ ? Image credits : Quickmeme.com.


The answer is 1.414.

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3 solutions

Pranav Arora
Jul 29, 2014

Consider the expansion:

1 1 4 x = k = 0 ( 2 k k ) x k \displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-4x}}=\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} {2k \choose k}x^k

Replace x x with x -x and add the two expressions to get:

k = 0 ( 4 k 2 k ) x 2 k = 1 2 ( 1 1 4 x + 1 1 + 4 x ) \displaystyle \sum_{k=0}^{\infty} {4k \choose 2k} x^{2k}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-4x}}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+4x}}\right)

Integrate with respect to x x with the limits 0 0 to x x and divide both the sides by x x to obtain:

k = 0 ( 4 k 2 k ) 2 k + 1 x 2 k = 1 + 4 x 1 4 x 4 x \displaystyle \sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac{{4k \choose 2k}}{2k+1}x^{2k}=\frac{\sqrt{1+4x}-\sqrt{1-4x}}{4x}

Substitute x = 1 / 4 x=1/4 to get the answer.

Nice solution Pranav!! I did in a similar way to you by using the expansions of ( 1 + x ) 1 / 2 (1+x)^{-1/2} instead of ( 1 + 4 x ) 1 / 2 (1+4x)^{-1/2} . First I tried to convert it to a telescopic sum but when that didn't work I used the above approach.

Karthik Kannan - 6 years, 10 months ago
Ahaan Rungta
Jul 26, 2014

Note that WolframAlpha cannot even solve the problem!

One must realize that this hints at a generating function: 1 1 x x = 1 2 k = 0 ( 4 k ) ! 1 6 k ( 2 k ) ! ( 2 k + 1 ) ! x k . \sqrt {\dfrac {1 - \sqrt {1-x}}{x}} = \dfrac {1}{\sqrt{2}} \cdot \displaystyle\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \dfrac {(4k)!}{16^k \cdot (2k)! (2k+1)!} \cdot x^k. Substituting x = 1 x = 1 , we get LHS = 1 \text {LHS} = 1 , so the answer is 2 \boxed{\sqrt{2}} .

Josh Speckman
Jul 27, 2014

I would have solved this the right way, but because of the title, I decided to do this:

sum of ((4k)!/(16^k * (2k)! * (2k+1)!)) from k=0 to infinity

Put that into W|A and it will yield the answer.

You can also transform the summand term as Gamma(2k+0.5)/Gamma(2k+2). Take the infinite sum using W|A and divide the sum by sqrt(pi) (which I factored out earlier).

Steven Zheng - 6 years, 10 months ago

See my solution. The whole point is WolframAlpha shouldn't have to do this for you; sorry if it trolled you!

Ahaan Rungta - 6 years, 10 months ago

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I solved it without WolframAlpha as well (although my solution was nowhere near as elegant as your, I admit), however, I was trying to show that this problem can be solved by Wolfram Alpha, you just have to know how to do the formatting. I definitely like your solution better.

Josh Speckman - 6 years, 10 months ago

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