Alternating sums
- To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net
- Subject: [mg328] Alternating sums
- From: Jack Goldberg <Jack.Goldberg at math.lsa.umich.edu>
- Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 11:30:47 -0500 (EST)
Hello mathgroup: I have received many responses to my query on how "best" to convert a list to an "alternating sum". My thanks to all of you who responded. It was surprising to see how many of you took an interest in this question - although one respondent predicted a deluge of answers. My guess is that many of you are curious about the answers I received. As soon as I finish designing and grading finals I will summarize the responses. To tease you all, I will add that the answers fall into two major catagories depending on whether Length[mylist] is used explicitly. If you avoid Length then the parity of the number of entries in the list may become a factor. Jack