Sequence and Series

A "sequence" (or "progression", in British English) is an ordered list of numbers; the numbers in this ordered list are called "elements" or "terms". A "series" is the value you get when you add up all the terms of a sequence; this value is called the "sum". For instance, "1, 2, 3, 4" is a sequence, with terms "1", "2", "3", and "4"; the corresponding series is the sum "1 + 2 + 3 + 4", and the value of the series is 10. A sequence may be named or referred to as "A" or "An". The terms of a sequence are usually named something like "ai" or "an", with the subscripted letter "i" or "n" being the "index" or counter. So the second term of a sequnce might be named "a2" (pronounced "ay-sub-two"), and "a12" would designate the twelfth term. Note: Sometimes sequences start with an index of n = 0, so the first term is actually a0. Then the second term would be a1. The first listed term in such a case would be called the "zero-eth" term. This method of numbering the terms is used, for example, in Javascript arrays. Don't assume that every sequence and series will start with an index of n = 1.