I’ve been away from the boards for awhile. But I still know where to find the smart peeps.
I am very bad at math.
The problem is simple, except I dont know how formulate it, nevermind solve it.
It goes like this:
I want to add 5 to 5, then add another 5, while including the previous sum, (10) until I get to 90,000. How many times can I add 5? (How many steps?)
For example 5+5= 10. So then I add another 5 to equal 15.
the sums so far are 5, 10, 15* which equal 30**
It took three steps to get that.
The fourth step would add 5 to 15* for 20. That 20 is tacked on to the previous 30** and so on.
How many steps until 90,000 is reached?
As you can see, I have trouble even wording it. I’m not just interested in the solution but how it would be phrased, for a calculator or the wolfram alpha search engine.
This is not homework of any kind. I’m trying to figure out a word count based on sentence length. Anybody with a math brain?
for (i=5; i <= 90000; i++)
number +=i;
outnumbers += number.ToString();
Console.WriteLine(outnumbers);
}
Of course, the problem is that with loop variables in C#, you can’t call the variable outside the loop, so you would have a full string output of loop … although … let me think about it … unless an array is used and then you can ‘for each’ … I think, not sure on the variable being accessible outside of that though. No, cause you have to use a counter still.
so far I noticed a pattern: for every 6 steps there are increments of thirty, so I may be able to count on myself. Yay for struggle making one stronger.
Then use the quadratic formula. You get about 189.24.
Here’s another way of looking at the equation for a sum of N consecutive numbers: by adding opposite ends of the finite series 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…188, 189, 190; you get 0 + 190, 1 + 189, 2 + 182, etc, which all add up to 190. This works until you hit 95, the middle, which you add once. So, there are 95 pairs of numbers that add up to 190, plus the middle number, 95. Multiply that all by 5 and you get 5*(190 * 95 + 95) = 90725.
However, after reading some parts of your post I’m not sure you’re not alluding to a more complicated series. Let us know if you think we’ve got it.
I will be testing out all the formulas you folks have presented.
The fact that you folks can think in these ways amazes me.
just so you know what I’m doing . . . .
This sentence has five words.
This sentence has five terms, and it adds another five.
This sentence has five units, and it adds another five, then it goes to ninety-thousand.
This declaration has five ways, and it adds five more, then I finally reach ninety-thousand, when I target an end.
versions
the first sentence keeps the framework, but it has the most versions. the second sentence has the second most versions. the last sentence is only said once.
As some have mentioned above, I do now think it’s summation, however, I’'m not looking for the final sum, but the number of steps of addition that got that final sum.
I am wholly prepared to take your word for it. I was looking for an estimate anyway, so even if you are close or spot on, it gives me a good idea about what I’m working with. I will use 189/190.
at some point i will get a growing sum, say, for example 4,000. When I add 5 to that, it’s 4,005, easy enough. But I am now adding that 4,005 to the previous 4,000, for 8,005, repeat.
so, from the start
5, 10, 15 . . . 3 steps for a total of 30. Then is 5 added to 15, for 20. That 20 adds to the 30 (4th step), and so on.
The sum grows a lot faster that way and thats what I’m after, to get on or around 90,000.
I think I did what you wanted. We’ll substitute tally marks for words.
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You want to know how many times you have to create a new line of tallies in order for the total tallies to be 90000. In the example above, the last iteration has 20 tallies, but there are 50 tallies total. After 190 times, the last line will have 950 tallies, but there will be 90725 tallies total.
Your average sentence would have 477.5 words in it.
There’s many ways to solve it. If you have excel you can do it very easily. You would put 5 in A1, 10 in A2, and drag it down to create as many consecutive multiples of five as you want. Then in B1, type “=sum($A$1:A1)” and drag it down as far as you want (you can double click on the little square that appears when your cursor turns into a crosshair at the corner of B1 and it will automatically fill out all the cells in column B as far as you filled out column A). It’ll look like this (I cut out most of the rows; the break is the black line I drew):
