Re: MX2 2015 Integration Marathon
You don't need to find a lower bound of sqrt(2*pi) though, I just asked for any positive constant in my original question.
So to summarise, if Q(n) is the quotient in the middle.
i) Show there are positive constants A,B such that A < Q(n) < B for all n. (My original question. You found a B, using the trapezoidal approximation, but can you find an A?)
ii) Show that Q(n) is monotone. (I just did this roughly, but I think it's not too hard.)
iii) Since the first two parts show that Q(n) -> c, you may assume this. Can you then find c? (This is distinct from i), you don't have to do it in an immediate sandwiching way, that sounds impossibly hard. Fortunately calculus gives us pretty powerful tools for computing things, especially when we don't have to worry about convergence!)
So did you end up having a proof that the Q(n) is bounded below by 1 Sy?
My upper bound (for the log sum) came from the trapezoidal approximation (and the geometric observation that this approximation underestimates the integral of a concave function.)
My lower bound I did in a couple of ways.
i) We can in fact overestimate the integral of a concave function by integrating its tangent curve. A convenient (and in fact optimal, which you can test with differential calculus) way of bounding
is by using the tangent at
. If we then perform the integration of this tangent line (ie calculate the area of a trapezium lol), we get log(a+1/2). This is a tight enough upper bound to be able to sum such approximations and get an appropriate lower bound for the logsum.
ii) We can study the trapezoidal approximation in a little more detail (wish we learned this in high school). Try to find a bound for the error of the trapezoidal approximation on
in terms of
Then this means the trapezoidal bound is good enough, as we can overestimate the logintegral by (its trapezoidal sum) + (a partial sum of the basel series). Knowing that the latter is finite is good enough to get a lower bound for the logsum.