I want to define a recursive sequence and then ask Mathematica to print a specific value:
Am I doing something wrong?
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First, you need to use "delayed substitution" so that Mathematica knows it needs to wait with evaluating expression until you type G[1]. Secondly, you can't have arithmetic expression on the left-hand side. so the second line should be:
G[y_]:=2G[y-1].
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11$\begingroup$ y_ doesn't have anything to do with delayed substitution. It just means any argument (indicated by _), to be named y. If you leave away the underscore the call would work only for the literal symbol y. $\endgroup$ May 21, 2012 at 5:24
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6$\begingroup$ Also it's not strictly true that you can't have an arithmetic expression on the left hand side; it just gives completely different semantics from the one intended: The original definition would have been used when calling as
G[y+1](assumingyhas no value assigned at the point of call). Indeed, when using a pattern, it can even make sense to have arithmetic arguments, e.g.:G[0]:=1;G[i_Integer/;i>0]:=2*G[i-1];G[y_+n_Integer/;n>0]:=2*G[y+n-1]Then you could writeG[a+4]and get the result16*G[a]. $\endgroup$– celtschkMay 21, 2012 at 8:17 -
$\begingroup$ @celtschk Hi, could you explain if there is a difference between those two functions :
H := Function[If[# <= 0, 0, H[# - 1] + #]]andG = Function[If[# <= 0, 0, r := G[# - 1] + #; r ]]? $\endgroup$ Sep 24, 2016 at 14:20