A Sum of Products Trick
Item
Title
A Sum of Products Trick
Description
Begin with any positive integer n. Write it as the sum of two smaller positive integers, say a and b. Compute the product ab. Repeat the same step in any order for each of the smaller numbers a and b. Continue this process until the only numbers left are 1s. Add up all the products. Regardless of the order in which the final 1s are obtained, the sum of the products will be the same. This talk will present the mathematics needed to explain why the products are the same and show how the ideas may be extended to other types of products whose sums will again be identical.
Vincent Ferlini
Contributor
Keene State College
Creator
Shannon Daley
Date
2015-04-11
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12088/7581
Language
en_US
Subject
Mathematics
Type
Presentation
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/