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maximaconvergence

In Maxima, how to check whether a series converges?


I would like to create a function that returns true precisely if a series diverges to infinity.

Unfortunately it seems that Maxima throws an error if a series diverges. I loaded the package simplify_sum and I hoped that simplify_sum(sum(1/n,n,1,inf)) would return inf, but it returns

sum: sum is divergent.
#0: simplify_sum(expr='sum(1/n,n,1,inf))
-- an error. To debug this try: debugmode(true);

How can I check whether a series diverges to infinity?


Solution

  • I realized this cannot be done as this is an undecidable problem.