CHAPTER -8

ARITHMETIC PROGRESSIONS

Introduction

You must have observed that in nature, many things follow a certain pattern, such as the petals of a sunflower, the holes of a honeycomb, the grains on a maize cob, the spirals on a pineapple and on a pine cone etc.
We now look for some patterns which occur in our day-to-day life. Some such examples are:
(i) Reena applied for a job and got selected. She has been offered a job with a starting monthly salary of   8000, with an annual increment of 500 in her salary. Her salary (in  ) for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, . . . years will be, respectively
8000, 8500, 9000, . . . .
(ii) The lengths of the rungs of a ladder decrease uniformly by 2 cm from bottom to top (see  Fig. 5.1). The bottom rung is 45 cm in length. The lengths (in cm) of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, . . ., 8th rung from the bottom to the top are, respectively
45, 43, 41, 39, 37, 35, 33, 31
(iii) In a savings scheme, the amount becomes   times of itself after every 3 years.       
The maturity amount (in) of an investment 8000 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years will be, respectively:
10000, 12500, 15625, 19531.25

Arithmetic Progressions
Consider the following lists of numbers:
(i)  1, 2, 3, 4, . . .
(ii) 100, 70, 40, 10, . . .
(iii)  – 3, –2, –1, 0, . . .
(iv) 3, 3, 3, 3, . . .
(v) –1.0, –1.5, –2.0, –2.5, . . .
Each of the numbers in the list is called a term.
Given a term, can you write the next term in each of the lists above? If so, how will you write it? Perhaps by following a pattern or rule. Let us observe and write the rule.
In (i), each term is 1 more than the term preceding it. In (ii), each term is 30 less than the term preceding it.
In (iii), each term is obtained by adding 1 to the term preceding it.
In (iv), all the terms in the list are 3, i.e., each term is obtained by adding (or subtracting) 0 to the term preceding it.
In (v), each term is obtained by adding – 0.5 to (i.e., subtracting 0.5 from) the term preceding it.
In all the lists above, we see that successive terms are obtained by adding a fixed number to the preceding terms. Such list of numbers is said to form an Arithmetic Progression (AP).
So, an arithmetic progression is a list of numbers in which each term is obtained by adding a fixed number to the preceding term except the first term.
This fixed number is called the common difference of the AP. Remember that it can be positive, negative or zero.
Let us denote the first term of an AP by a1, second term by a2, …..,nth term by an and the common difference by d. then the AP becomes a1, a2, a3, ….., an.
So, a2a1 = a3a2 = … = anan – 1= d.
Some more examples of AP are:
(a) The heights (in cm) of some students of a school standing in a queue in the morning assembly are 147, 148, 149, . . ., 157.
(b) The minimum temperatures (in degree celsius) recorded for a week in the month of January in a city, arranged in ascending order are
– 3.1, – 3.0, – 2.9, – 2.8, – 2.7, – 2.6, – 2.5
(c) The balance money (in) after paying 5 % of the total loan of   1000 every month is 950, 900, 850, 800, . . ., 50.
(d) The cash prizes (in) given by a school to the toppers of Classes I to XII are, respectively, 200, 250, 300, 350, . . ., 750.
(e) The total savings (in) after every month for 10 months when   50 are saved each month are 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500.
It is left as an exercise for you to explain why each of the lists above is an AP.
You can see that

a, a + d, a + 2d, a + 3d, . . .

Represents an arithmetic progression where a is the first term and d the common difference. This is called the general form of an AP.
Note that in examples (a) to (e) above, there are only a finite number of terms. Such an AP is called a finite AP. Also note that each of these Arithmetic Progressions (APs) has a last term. The APs in examples (i) to (v) in this section are not finite APs and so they are called infinite Arithmetic Progressions. Such APs do not have a last term.

nth Term of an AP
Let us consider the situation again, given in Section 5.1 in which Reena applied for a job and got selected. She has been offered the job with a starting monthly salary of   8000, with an annual increment of    500. What would be her monthly salary for the fifth year?
Let a1, a2, a3,…be an AP whose first term a1 is a and the common difference is d.
Then,
The second term a2 = a + d = a + (2 – 1) d
The third term     a3 = a2 + d = (a + d) = a + 2d = a + (3 – 1) d
The fourth term   a4 = a3 + d = (a + 2d) + d = a + 3d = a + (4 – 1) d…………..

Looking at the pattern, we can say that the nth term an = a + (n – 1) d.
So, the nth term an of the AP with first term a and common difference d is given by

an = a + (n – 1) d.
an is also called the general term of the AP. If there are m terms in the AP, then am represents the last term which is sometimes also denoted by l.