Seeking a math-related article about strange infinite series

Post date: 2019-09-13 14:14:32
Views: 206
My Google-foo is failing me. About a month ago, I started reading a very interesting article about a topic in mathematics. I read only the first few paragraphs before I got distracted by something. Now I want to finish the article, but I can't find it.

I'm not a mathematician, so I might be getting some details wrong, but this is how I remember it. The article talked about infinite series that seem like they're going to converge to a specific value (like pi or e), but then unexpectedly start to diverge away from that value after X number of terms. And as I recall, X can be fairly small, like 20 terms. Or, in some cases, it can be huge, like 10^10 terms.

I can't remember if the article had some overall point beyond just describing these strange series, but I know it wasn't an academic paper. It was published in some kind of popular outlet, like Quanta, Nautilus, or Seed.

It's not in my browser history, and I've had no success in Googling it. It's possible that I'm not remembering the specifics correctly, so I might be using the wrong search terms.
Number of Comments
Please click Here to read the full story.
 
Other Top and Latest Questions:
Delta CEO sees record earnings in reach again thanks to high-end travel demand
The top 10 jobs in the U.S. for 2026 all pay $100,000 or more, according to Indeed
Pentagon to invest $1 billion in L3Harris rocket motor business, shares surge
Salesforce releases updated Slackbot powered by Anthropic's AI model
CEOs, security executives are divided on cyber risks of AI, survey finds
Rates have dropped to the lowest point in years — here are the best lenders for refinancing your mortgage
India’s exports to China surge in December while shipments to U.S. decline as Trump tariffs bite
TSMC is set to expand its $165 billion U.S. investment — here’s what we know
OpenAI tells investors to brace for 'deliberately outlandish' claims from Musk ahead of trial
Trump accepts Nobel medal from Venezuelan opposition leader Machado