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I was solving some programming exercises then i stumbled upon one that involved the summation of $1, 2, 3, ..., n$. But in the problem i needed to come up with a way to sum all of the instances of such sum up to some number k, that is, find:

$\sum_{i=1}^k S(i)$ , where $S(i) := \frac{i(i+1)}{2}$

So naturaly i found the recurrence relation:

$F(n) := F(n-1) + \frac{n(n+1)}{2}$, where $F(1) = 1$

But the problem is i have very little experience on solving recurrences. So I´d be glad to hear a suggestion on how to tackle it maybe just a completely different than solving the recurrence.

AlienRem
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Mateus Buarque
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  • Try to express the sum as a third order polynomial of $n$. – user58697 Mar 25 '18 at 04:25
  • The sum can be written in terms of $\sum i$ and $\sum {i^2}$, both of which have nice closed form. – Tipping Octopus Mar 25 '18 at 04:26
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    There is no need to solve any recurrence. You are dealing with a telescoping sum! $$\frac{i(i+1)}{2} = \frac{(i+2)-(i-1)} {3}\cdot\frac{i(i+1)}{2} = \frac{i(i+1)(i+2)}{6} - \frac{(i-1)i(i+1)}{6} $$ – achille hui Mar 25 '18 at 18:23

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Hint:

  • Faulhaber's formula is often referred in this case. Two instances are \begin{align*} \sum_{i=1}^k i=\frac{k(k+1)}{2}\qquad\qquad \sum_{i=1}^k i^2=\frac{k(k+1)(2k+1)}{6} \end{align*}

  • See for instance this MSE answer for a method how to derive such formulas.

Markus Scheuer
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