median
don steward
mathematics teaching 10 ~ 16

Monday, 20 December 2010

averaging

choose any two numbers

the next number is the average of these two
the next is the average of the last two
etc.




students can explore the limit - which is reached fairly quickly

the limit is a linear combination of the first two terms

this has been called 'Littov's chain' but someone (Raz Lamplugh) told me this was a made up name...

it generalises to e.g. choose any three numbers then repeatedly work out the average of the previous three numbers

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