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Makematics

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HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THIS EPIPHANY OMFG

Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu wow I should've just wrote k=n+1
bad luck! :( anyways what i really wanna know is how you can actually prove this. Realise, i was also trying an induction in the last 5 minutes but to no avail.
 

RealiseNothing

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bad luck! :( anyways what i really wanna know is how you can actually prove this. Realise, i was also trying an induction in the last 5 minutes but to no avail.
My approach:

Prove that:



Where 'p' is not divisible by 3.
 

Makematics

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My approach:

Prove that:



Where 'p' is not divisible by 3.
Yep yep same here. I tried messing around with stuff like letting x=3^n but yeah, that didnt work out... was running out of time so just wrote down what i had observed from the results from the first few cases.
 

sbhs2013

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Yep yep same here. I tried messing around with stuff like letting x=3^n but yeah, that didnt work out... was running out of time so just wrote down what i had observed from the results from the first few cases.
Then factorise and equate, something along the lines of that. I had fricking n+1 the whole time and I kept stumbling with the "k=2 when n=2"
 

RealiseNothing

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Realise how did you do Q5? :eek:
1) Prove that 'n' has to be a multiple of 2 (fairly straight forward and obvious as you need an even amount of terms so that all 1's and -1's cancel out).

2)Prove that 'n' can be a multiple of 4. This is done by considering 4 terms:



Now this will always sum to 0 if only one of the x's is -1, and the other 3 are 1. So it is possible for 'n' to be a multiple of 4 by applying this method to all groups of 4.

3) Prove that 'n' can't be a multiple of 2 that isn't a multiple of 4, i.e.

Well you know the first terms will sum to 0, so you prove the last 2 terms can never equal 0, etc.
 

Makematics

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i havent learnt harder 3u so my first reaction to Q4 was like "oh shiet, i need harder 3U skillz to do this"
 

Makematics

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1) Prove that 'n' has to be a multiple of 2 (fairly straight forward and obvious as you need an even amount of terms so that all 1's and -1's cancel out).

2)Prove that 'n' can be a multiple of 4. This is done by considering 4 terms:



Now this will always sum to 0 if only one of the x's is -1, and the other 3 are 1. So it is possible for 'n' to be a multiple of 4 by applying this method to all groups of 4.

3) Prove that 'n' can't be a multiple of 2 that isn't a multiple of 4, i.e.

Well you know the first terms will sum to 0, so you prove the last 2 terms can never equal 0, etc.
alright well i was messing around with cases and wrote something along those lines. someone who did it was saying something about factoring out terms and then summing them.
 

RealiseNothing

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I just realised for question 6, I could have written down the general formula:



which would have given me extra credit marks :(
 

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