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I'm trying to plot the points (n, a(n)) from n=1 to n=20, but Maple's just telling me what I want to plot, without actually plotting it. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

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beep-boop
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  • Try pointplot({seq([n,a(n)],n=1..20)}); – Mike Miller Feb 16 '14 at 17:32
  • You, my friend, are a lifesaver! One more thing: I'm trying to use Maple to find the smallest $N$ such that $|a_n--2|<\frac{1}{500}$. But when I try to use the solve command, it says 'Warning, solutions may have been lost). Any ideas? – beep-boop Feb 16 '14 at 17:41
  • Using fsolve produces a result if that's a help. – Mike Miller Feb 16 '14 at 17:45
  • Tried that. I ran: fsolve(abs(a(n)+2)<1/500, n), but, alas, another error. – beep-boop Feb 16 '14 at 17:47
  • Try it so fsolve(abs(a(n)+2)-1/500), then you know the value when it's equal to $\frac{1}{500}$. From there you could deduce when it is less. – Mike Miller Feb 16 '14 at 17:52
  • I've just done that and it's just repeating the same thing back to me in blue. – beep-boop Feb 16 '14 at 17:55
  • http://i.stack.imgur.com/ZLzou.png – Mike Miller Feb 16 '14 at 17:58
  • I got exactly what you got. Thanks. But, then, if I think about it, how can 1 (the ceiling value of 0.091...) be the least value of $N$ such that $|a_n+2|<\frac{1}{500}$. Looking at your graph, I see it's clear that $a_1$ (whose value is just over 2) is nowhere near the limit of $-2$, never mean to within $\frac{1}{500}$ of it! Could you elaborate... – beep-boop Feb 16 '14 at 22:34
  • If you're looking for discrete values of $n$ you could run a loop to find the first $n$ s.t. $|a_n+2|<\frac{1}{500}$; e.g. http://i.stack.imgur.com/588FV.png – Mike Miller Feb 16 '14 at 23:31

1 Answers1

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The following syntax worked for me, which produces the graph shown.

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Mike Miller
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