Through self-study of mathematics, I accidentally stumbled into an area called Linear Recurrence Relations. After poking around in a few different websites I think I'm starting to grasp the idea. I'm just looking to clarify something I read to see if I'm understanding something correctly.

profesorluissp

profesorluissp

Answered question

2022-09-06

Self-Study in Discrete Mathematics: Linear Recurrence Relations
Through self-study of mathematics, I accidentally stumbled into an area called Linear Recurrence Relations. After poking around in a few different websites I think I'm starting to grasp the idea. I'm just looking to clarify something I read to see if I'm understanding something correctly. On one of the of the websites I was looking at it, it gave the following example:
x 1 = 3 , x n = 3 x n 1
x 2 = 3 x 1 = 9
x 3 = 3 x 2 = 27
x 4 = 3 x 3 = 81
Having "solved" the equation for multiple instances, it is noticed that the answers are powers of 3. Thereby making the formula x n = 3 n .
I have a few questions.
1. Is it valid to re-write the starting formula as x n + 1 = 3 x n or does this fundamentally change something with the base formula?
2. Is it necessary to solve for several iterations of the base equation to derive the formula or is there a method to have inferred the x n = 3 n from the original formula?
3. Are the solvable iterations necessary for proof?
I will probably have more questions. As this area of mathematics is new to me, and has been self-study. Also, I apologize for any improper use of LaTeX. I'm just now learning of it and how to write with it. So if something doesn't look right, it's probably due to my inexperience with it.

Answer & Explanation

Anabelle Hicks

Anabelle Hicks

Beginner2022-09-07Added 13 answers

Step 1
Neither x n = 3 x n 1 nor x n + 1 = 3 x n is a rigorous sentence, as neither of them specifies the values of n for which it holds. The (presumed) intent of the example is
( i ) . . . . x 1 = 3 n N ( n 2 x n = 3 x n 1 ) .
This is equivalent to
( i i ) . . . . x 1 = 3 m N ( x m + 1 = 3 x m ) .
The only reason (i) looks more complicated than (ii) is that we don't have a standard 1-letter symbol for { n N : n 2 } .
Step 2
We can prove n N ( x n = 3 n ) by induction on n without explicitly calculating xn for any n > 1.
In more complicated examples it is often useful to compute several iterations in order to obtain a plausible conjecture for a formula, but a proof is still required.

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