I am having trouble with finite sums. I started looking at some simple
examples to try to get a better grasp--please let me know if there's a
better way to handle sum() calculations. While 'sum(1,i,1,n)' returns
'n' as it should, sum(i,i,1,n) remains in open form. From describe(sum)
I picked up that I need to do sum(i,i,1,n),simpsum to get the expected
2
n + n
(%o9) ------
2
My first newbie question is what is that construct 'sum(),simpsum'? is
simpsum a procedure evaluated on output of sum(), or some global flag?
The help doesn't describe it, but just mention it in the examples.
My real summation formula is sum(binomial(k+1,2)^(n-k),k,1,n) (it has to
do with a number of ways you can configure an electronic circiut with n
components). I wasn't able to simplify this expression in any way;
please let me know if you have any suggestions.