A student is studying the sequence
Their working is shown below.
We have
This clearly shows that
and so the sequence
is decreasing.
Prove that the student is wrong, and give the first pair of terms in the sequence where
It is not enough to say that the difference between the terms is getting smaller.
Instead, try completing the square on
Completing the square will allow you to find the minimum value of the sequence (see ). After the minimum point, the sequence must start increasing.