this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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As a not-math person, it's 0, right? Following the pattern, there would eventually be an (x-x) which would introduce a multiply by 0 into the problem and delete everything like a black hole from which no number escapes?
You are indeed a math person!
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but x isn't specifically part of the sequence a-z, right? And a-z isn't explicitly a consecutive sequence. Both are implied, but they're all just placeholders for individual numbers, not necessarily in relation to each other.
If that is the intention, it's poorly done. (1-x)(2-x)(3-x)...(∞-x) is much clearer and understandable.
You could argue it's implied that a-z sequence contains x. But I agree that it's a bit ambiguous.
Here's what a better notation would look like:
Or
This way, both Bn and X could be any number and not just natural ones.