Definition §

Recursive Sequences

Recurrance Relation, or Recursive Sequences use Recursion in that they refer to a sequence where the previous number in the sequence is used to produce the next number.

Warning

Recursive Sequences can not be worked out explictly.

Recursive Sequences require a starting value, since they refer to the value right before them, they requrie manual intervention to begin.

Recursive Sequence Formula §

Working out next value of Term with previus value §

Refers to the ’nth’, value, n can be substituted for anything, e.g. to find 6th value , because the result of this is

Usually this will ‘equal’ something, e.g. This equation is saying that the term after the term n () is equal to the value of , or the previous value + 6 since the Sequence increases by 6 each term

Example §

The population of Desert Scrubrats is decreasing y 15% each year if the population is initially 1200, write a recursive formula for the scrubrat population.