The fly and the train, contd.

Thinking about the famous story involving von Neumann and the infinite series, I guessed that if we have a series where:

each succeeding term x_n+1 is produced from the preceding term x_n by multiplying by the factor 1/r, then the sum of all the terms x_n+1 + x_n+2... is equal to x_n * 1/(r-1).

So, I ran a Python simulation and it turns out to be correct!

def test(r): n = 100 # works for other n as well rL = [n] f = 1.0/r for i in range(10): rL.append(rL[-1]*f) print str(r).ljust(3), print round(n*1.0/sum(rL[1:]),2) for r in range(2,10): test(r)

2 1.0 3 2.0 4 3.0 5 4.0 6 5.0 7 6.0 8 7.0 9 8.0

If I'm reading the article correctly, this turns out to be a simple result from the theory of geometric series, and it looks like it works even for fractional r. Modifying the code above to test fractional r shows this is true. Department of "learn something new every day"....

My guess is that von Neumann saw all three pieces instantly:
• the first term and step size of the series
• the formula for the terms after the first one
• the easy way