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computation to you.
I want you to show that one obtains the
constant sequence 4.
Now, what do you observe here?
It's as if we're taking the derivative of
a linear function and obtaining the
constant function.
But here, these are sequences and
differences instead of derivatives.
Here's another
example, a bit more interesting, the
Fibonacci sequence.
What happens when we take the forward
difference of that?
One finds, that again, one
obtains the Fibonacci sequence, but
shifted over by one step with an
additional 1 out in front.
That seems like it must be significant.
For last example, consider the sequence 2
to the n.
What happens when we compute the forward
difference of that?
We obtain, again, 2 to the n.
It's
as if this is something by the exponential
function,
e to the x, which is its own derivative.
But here, we're in the discrete world,
taking differences.
There are many parallels between
differences and derivatives.
For example, if we ask the question, which
sequences are polynomial,
consider n squared.
When we take its forward difference, we
obtain a sequence of odd numbers.
That is, the sequence 2n plus 1.
What happens when we difference?
Again,
the second forward difference, delta
squared, is, in this case, a constant.
The constant
sequence 2.
What happens when we take the next
difference, the third forward difference?
Then, we obtain the constant sequence
zero.
This is very similar to what happens when
we differentiate a polynomial.
After a finite number of steps, we get 0.
In general, one can say that a sequence a
is a polynomial
of degree p, if the p plus first
derivative,
that is, difference of a is the constant
0.
Now, notice that there's something that's
not
quite according to what you would expect
here.
That is the difference of n squared is not
2n, but rather,
2n plus 1.
Now that seems anomalous, but
we can explain that with a bit more
notation, in particular,
that of the falling powers.
These are discrete calculus versions of
monomials.
We say that n to the falling k is n times
n minus 1, times and minus 2, all the way
down to n minus k plus 1.
That works for k bigger than zero.
For k equal to zero, we'll define n
to the falling zero to be 1, of course.
Now, the reason
why this is so useful is that the forward
difference of n to
the falling k is k times n to the falling
k minus 1.
Let's look at this in the context
of the example that we've done.
Consider the sequence n squared, we could
rewrite n squared as n times quantity n
minus 1 plus n.
That is, it's really n to the falling 2
plus n to the falling 1.
And hence, the forward difference of n
squared is the forward
difference of n to the falling 2 plus n to
the falling
1, differencing, like differentiating is
linear.
Hence, this is the difference of n to the
falling 2 plus the difference of n to the
falling 1, that is 2n to the falling 1
plus n to the following 0.
Otherwise, written as the sequence, 2n
plus 1, which is what we observe.
Now that seems a
bit complicated.
Why would you want to do that?
Well, let's consider a more fundamental
question.
The question that began this course.
What is e?
Well, we know that e is.
1 plus 1 plus a half plus a sixth plus a
24th, et cetera.
That is, the sum k goes from 0 to
infinity,
[INAUDIBLE]
x to the k over k factorial evaluated at x
equals
1.
Now, that's for smooth
Calculus, what about discrete Calculus?
What is the discrete
version of e?
high difference.
Let's say the eighth forward difference.
That's going to depend on a lot of terms.
What is the coefficient in front of the a
sub n plus 6 term?
Well, by writing down Pascal's Triangle.
Looking up the appropriate coefficient
with the minus sign in the right place,
we easily see that that proficient is
negative 56.
That is much simpler than trying to work
it out by hand.
There are other things that we seem to be
able do as well.
Consider the discrete notion of indefinite
integral.
If the forward difference
is E minus I, then what happens when we
try
to take the inverse that is undo
differencing?
Well, we need to take E minus I to the
negative 1 power.
Let's say, if I wrote that a little bit
differently,
and say put a minus sign out front and
called it I minus E, then it
is as if we're trying to compute 1
over I minus something.
Well,
I've seen formulae for 1 over 1 minus x,
in terms
of geometric series.
What happens if we tried applying the
geometric series to this formula?
It would suggest that the
inverse operator to four differencing is
minus I plus E plus E
squared plus E cubed plus E to the fourth,
et cetera, et cetera.
Now, that seems rather dubious.
Let's check it on a simple example, see
what we get.
Let's take a random sequence.
Let's say 3, negative 1, 4, negative 1, 5,
negative 9, 2, negative 6, 5.
And I'm tired, so I'm just
going to write zeros from now on.
What would this
delta inverse really mean?
It means
what?
Well, I need two at the nth
term.
Take the sum of all the terms in
a that follow from n on up, and then
put a minus sign in front of it.
If we do so, walking down the line we can
marching from the right, certainly compute
the terms in this sequence.
[INAUDIBLE]
this is easy since our sequence terminated
in zeros.
What happens when we take that and forward
difference it?
I'll leave it to you to check that we
obtain the original sequence a, that this
actually does work.
Now, don't get too carried away.
You have to be careful.
First of all
[LAUGH]
you forgot the constant.
we all forgot the constant.
Also, notice that this is only going to
work, if your
sequence terminates in zeros or rather, is
summable to the right.
Have fun with discrete calculus, but be
careful.
We've seen how finite differences provide
a
discrete version of a derivative for
sequences,
complete with interesting analogues of the
exponential
function and a surprising way to do
anti-differencing.
In our next lesson, we're going to go
fully digital and use our notions
of differencing and anti-differencing to
give an overview of the discrete calculus.