ΘρϵηΠατπ

Reciprocal of the Reciprocal
Let a,b be positive real numbers. Set x0=a and xn+1=(xn1+b)1 for n0.
  • Prove that xn is strictly monotone decreasing.
  • Prove that the limit exists and find it.

For the induction step we'll notice before anything else that in general for any n1 we have that xn+1=(xn1+b)1=11xn+b=11+bxnxn=xn1+bxn moving on, let k1 we'll prove that xkxk+1, xk+1=xk1+bxk=xk11+bxk11+b(xk11+bxk1)=xk11+bxk1(1+bxk1+bxk11+bxk1)=xk11+2bxk1 But then because of the fact that 1+2bxk>1+bxk then we know that xk+1=xk11+2bxk1<xk11+bxk1=xk

Finally as x0=a>a1+ab=x1 as ab+, then we know that xk>xk+1 for all k0

Next we can prove that all terms are positive because a,b>0 and all terms are derived from them using operations that maintain positivity so in the induction step it will work. Therefore it is lower bounded by 0 by MCT the limit exists.

Recall that limnxn=L=limnxn+1=limn11xn+b=11L+b=L1+Lb We see that this implies 1+Lb=1 Therefore since b+ we must have that L=0.


As an alternative to that, we can find a closed form for xk which allows us to compute the limit directly

Note that in the induction step something interesting occurred, syntactically we could have then replaced xk1 with xk21+bxk2 then following the same simplification steps we would have obtained xk21+3bxk2, from this we make the conjecture that xj=a1+jba which we will now prove by showing that for any k1, and any j{0,,k} we have xk=xkj1+jbxkj

For the base case of j=1 we see that xk=xk11+(1)xk1, now suppose it holds true for some j{1,,k1} and we'll show that it holds true for j+1, xk=xkj1+jbxkj=xkj11+bxkj11+jb(xkj11+bxkj1)=xkj11+bxkj11+(j+1)xkj11+bxkj1=xkj11+(j+1)bxkj1

Therefore by finite induction it holds true for all j{1,k} specifically for k=j we have xk=a1+kba