Thursday, January 11, 2007

Solving Van Roomen's Problem: Step Two

In my previous blog, I showed how Van Roomen's problem could be reduced to a summation formula:

(45)x - (3,795)x3 + (95,634)x5 - (1,138,500)x7 + (7,811,375)x9 - (34,512,075)x11 + (105,306,075)x13 - (232,676,280)x15 + (384,942,375)x17 - (488,494,125)x19 + (483,841,800)x21 - (378,658,800)x23 + (236,030,652)x25 - (117,679,100)x27 + (46,955,700)x29 - (14,945,040)x31 + (3,764,565)x33 - (740,259)x35 + (111,150)x37 - (12,300)x39 + (945)x41 - (45)x43 + x45 =



where n = 45.

In today's blog, I will show how a recurrence relation can be introduced to simplify the problem further.

The key insight comes to generalizing the above summation formula. For example, let's define:

Fn(x) =



It turns out that it is possible to show that for any n ≥ 1:

2cos(nα) = Fn(2cosα)

For any odd n ≥ 1:

2 sin(nα) = (-1)(n-1)/2*Fn(2sinα)

François Viète knew both of these identities and he would use them to find his solutions to Van Roomen's problem. In today's blog, I will show the proof for the recurrent relation and in my next blog, I will show how this recurrence relation leads to the trigonometric identities above.

Theorem 1: Recurrence Formula

If:

Fn(x) =



Then:

Fn(x) = x*Fn-1(x) + Fn-2(x)

Proof:

(1) F1(x) = (-1)0*(1/1)*[(1!)/(0!1!)]x1-0 = x

(2) F2(x) = (-1)0*(2/2)*[(2!)/(0!2!)]x2-0 + (-1)1*(2/1)*[(1!)/(1!0!)]x2-2 = x2 - 2

(3) F3(x) = (-1)0*(3/3)*[(3!)/(0!3!)]x3-0 + (-1)1*(3/2)*[(2!)/(1!1!)]x3-2 = x3 - 3x

(4) We can see that x*F2(x) - F1(x) = x*(x2 - 2) - x = x3 - 3x.

(5) So, we can assume that the recurrence formula is true up to some integer n-1 where n ≥ 4, that is:

Fn-1(x) = x*Fn-2(x) - Fn-3(x)

(6) Now, x*Fn-1(x) =



=


(7) Likewise, Fn-2(x) =



=



=



(8) So, we see that: x*Fn-1(x) - Fn-2(x) =





where if n is odd,

C = 0

and if n is even,

C =

-(-1)
(n/2 - 1)[(n-2)/(n-1-n/2)][(n-1-n/2)!/(n/2-1)!(n-1-n/2-(n/2-1))!]xn-2(n/2) =

= (-1)(n/2)[(n-2)/(n/2-1)][(n/2-1)!/(n/2 -1)!(0!)]x0 =

= (-1)(n/2)[(n-2)]/[(n/2-1)](1)(1) = (-1)(n/2)(n-2)*(2)/(n-2) =

= (-1)(n/2)*2

(9) So, x*Fn-1(x) - Fn-2(x) - C - xn =



(10) Focusing solely on the middle part, we see that:
















(11) If n is odd:

Fn(x) =



(12) If n is even:

Fn(x) =



(13) So, either way we have:

Fn(x) = x*Fn-1(x) - Fn-2(x).

QED

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