My friends and I are finishing High School in Denmark. We have to do a math poster for some school activity, where the poster needs to have something to do with the number $7$. So my question is: does someone know a cool mathematical function that converges towards $7$? We covered Calculus III, so we should be able to understand a little math!
-
12$\frac{42}{\pi^2} \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^2}$ – Gregory Apr 25 '17 at 20:02
-
2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fano_plane ... $7$ points & $7$ lines (each line containing $3$ points) ... a fundemental object of finite projective geometry. – Donald Splutterwit Apr 25 '17 at 20:07
-
4A function does not converge. – Carsten S Apr 26 '17 at 08:57
10 Answers
One with the Fibonacci sequence:
$$ \lim_{n\to\infty}\frac{4F_{n+1}^2 - 4F_{n+1}F_n + 3F_n^2}{F_n^2} = \lim_{n\to\infty}\left(2\frac{F_{n+1}}{F_n} - 1\right)^2 + 2 = 7. $$

- 41,546
- 4
- 46
- 89
Here is one that looks crazy at first, but it is actually quite simple:
$$\lim\limits_{N\to\infty}\left[\frac N{3\pi}\sin\left(\frac{42}{N}\sum\limits_{k=1}^N\left(\frac{\pi}{\pi+2}\right)^k\right)\right] = 7. $$

- 12,989
-
3... and it features the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Nice!! – Angew is no longer proud of SO Apr 26 '17 at 07:23
What about $7+a_n$ where $a_n$ converges to $0$? You could then proceed to find any fancy function you want, like
$$a_n=7+\frac{7}{7^{7n+7}}$$
converges to $7$.
Or, given a sequence $b_n$ converging to $L\neq 0$, the sequence $\frac7Lb_n$ converges to $7$, like
$$a_n=\left(7-\frac{7}{7}\right)\sum_{k=0}^n\frac{1}{7^k}$$
converges to $7$.
Some other cool facts about $7$ can be found on Wikipedia's page on 7.
$$8-\frac 87+\frac{8}{49}-\frac{8}{343}+...$$
Or, maybe
$$\sqrt[n]{\sum_{r=0}^n\binom{n}{r}6^r}$$

- 34,121
$111_2 = 7$
$0.111\ldots_8 = 1/7$.

- 95,224
- 7
- 108
- 199
-
5And to answer the question with this, the function would be $f(n) = 1 / {0.\underbrace{111\ldots1_8}_{n}}$. – Caleb Stanford Apr 26 '17 at 00:30
There is Newton's method for square root. Let $$ x_{n+1}=\frac12\left(x_n+\frac{49}{x_n}\right) $$ for any $x_0 > 0$. Then $x_n \to 7$.

- 216,483
Not a strict answer to the question, but still related to calculs : the Borwein integrals. Let us denote by $\operatorname{sinc}$ the sinus cardinal function $\operatorname{sinc}x=\frac{\sin x}{x}$ and consider the following integrals defined for any natural number $n$: $$B_n=\int_0^\infty \left(\prod_{k=0}^n \operatorname{sinc}\frac{x}{2k+1}\right)\,\mathrm{d}x.$$ Then you have $B_n=\frac{\pi}{2}$ if and only if $n<7$.

- 6,867