Thursday 29 July 2010

Solving an Infinite Radical Chain

One of the blogs I've started to follow lately, Math Frolic, just posted the following algebra problem.

It is a nice problem, and the answer is given....and then??? well, Nothing actually..that was the end of the blog...
Now I like this blog, and "Shecky Riemann" who is the blogger does some really good stuff...but solving this for an answer is .... Ok... being kind let me just say... it was NOT good enough. Surely we could tease them a little... and ask them to explore the general expression Integer=Nested radicals of (r)... I explored that here, and more on this blog...

So here is an upgrade (I hope) to Shecky's post... lets take the 3 and replace it by any integer.... Solve it and look for a pattern... and let the mathematical term Pronic creep into your vocabulary if it hasn't yet, children.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

why limit yourself to integers?

Anonymous said...

I played with this idea a little on my blog: http://gasstationwithoutpumps.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/solving-an-infinite-radical-chain/

Thanks for the starter.

Pat's Blog said...

I guess I find patterns in the integers to be interesting...maybe it is all those years chasing down solutions to problems about monkeys and coconuts. For me, and I think lots of recreational math types, the integers are special
Pat