12/15 Series

A series is a continuing sum of terms that have a pattern. It can be very useful to know how to code a program to computer a series.

For example, we can add up a series of numbers using the following code:

int sum = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    sum += i+1;
} //finds the sum of the first 10 whole numbers (1, 2, 3...)

We can also use it to find a more complicated series:

//find the sum of the series 1+1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16+1/32... to the 10th term
for(int i = 0; i < 10; i*=2) {
    sum += 1/(i^2+1);
}

We also have a handy loop known as a while loop. This runs until a condition is false.

while(condition) {
    doSomething();
}

if the condition will always be true, then the loop may run infinitely.

We then went over lots of practice problems involving loops.