Real Infinite Series

Book excerpt: This is a widely accessible introductory treatment of infinite series of real numbers, bringing the reader from basic definitions and tests to advanced results. An up-to-date presentation is given, making infinite series accessible, interesting, and useful to a wide audience, including students, teachers, and researchers. Included are elementary and advanced tests for convergence or divergence, the harmonic series, the alternating harmonic series, and closely related results. One chapter offers 107 concise, crisp, surprising results about infinite series. Another gives problems on infinite series, and solutions, which have appeared on the annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. The lighter side of infinite series is treated in the concluding chapter where three puzzles, eighteen visuals, and several fallacious proofs are made available. Three appendices provide a listing of true or false statements, answers to why the harmonic series is so named, and an extensive list of published works on infinite series.