English

A recurrence for an expression involving double factorials

Combinatorics 2016-06-13 v3

Abstract

We find a closed-form solution to the recurrence  zn+2=1zn+1+zn\ z_{n+2} = \frac{1}{z_{n+1}} + z_n, where nZ1n \in \mathbb Z_{\geq 1} and z1R>0, z2R>0z_1 \in \mathbb R_{> 0},\ z_2 \in \mathbb R_{> 0}. As a corollary, we derive an alternate proof of a recurrence for an expression involving double factorials which first appeared in the 2004 Putnam Contest. We subsequently pose several open questions suitable for motivated undergraduate students.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1510.00399,
  title  = {A recurrence for an expression involving double factorials},
  author = {Joseph E. Cooper},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1510.00399},
  year   = {2016}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T11:10:40.451Z