Calculus 10th Edition

Published by Brooks Cole
ISBN 10: 1-28505-709-0
ISBN 13: 978-1-28505-709-5

Chapter 9 - Infinite Series - 9.1 Exercises - Page 593: 59

Answer

Not monotonic but bounded

Work Step by Step

$a_n=\:sin\left(\frac{n\times \pi }{6}\right)\:$ Let's calculate a few of the initial values to get an insight on the function as we cannot directly establish any relation between $a_n$ and $a_{n+1}$. $a_1=\:sin\left(\frac{1\times \pi }{6}\right)\:=\:0.5\:$ $a_2=\:sin\left(\frac{2\times \:\pi \:}{6}\right)\:=sin\left(\frac{\pi \:}{3}\right)\:=\:0.866$ $a_3=\:sin\left(\frac{3\times \:\pi \:}{6}\right)\:=sin\left(\frac{\pi \:}{2}\right)\:=\:1$ $a_4=\:sin\left(\frac{4\pi \:}{6}\right)\:=sin\left(\frac{2\pi \:}{3}\right)\:=\:0.866$ Thus we see that the sequence first increases up till n=3 and then decreases. Hence it is not monotonic. We know that with real numbers as arguments, sin(x) never outputs numbers outside the range of [-1, 1]. Hence the sequence is bounded from above and below.
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