Infinite Sum Quiz Puzzle Answer


This week's puzzle is quite easy to state, but not so easy to solve.

What do you get if you add One, a half, a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth and so on for an infinite number of fractions?

Taking the first term One, this is one less than two.

Adding the second term makes one and a half, which is a half less than two.

Adding the third term makes one and three quarters, which is a quarter less than two.

This pattern continues, with the addition of each term reducing the gap between the sum and two to the value of the term just added.

At first sight it would appear that the sum never actually reaches two, but there are an infinite number of terms, and so the gap becomes infinitely small.

The answer is two.

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