Thread: Is there an equation?

I hope I can describe this well enough so that someone might be able to help me.

I'm looking for a general equation that includes, for example, the following coordinates:

(0,0)
(1,1)
(3,2)
(6,3)
(10,4)

I've figured out two ways to describe what I want. Either x = the sum of all y's less than or equal to it, or x = y plus the x immediately preceding it in the series.

I'd be most interested in whether this could be graphed as a curve.

Thanks in advance, and I hope this is clear.

Jeff Eff

Both of your explanations work, but I don't think you'll be able to graph those kinds of "functions" on any graphing utility because they are not standard ones, like sin(x), ln(x), sqrt(x), etc.

I think you can. Gragh the following equation

f (x) = [sqrt(8*x+1)-1] / 2

If you look at your points, you should be able to see a quadratic equation only in reverse. (0,0) (1,1) (2,3) (3,6) (4,10)

The equation should be y = 0.5x *(x + 1), now solve for x and you should get what you want to graph

If you want the other half of the graph you will also have to graph -f(x)

Without access to an equation editor, my previous post might be confusing

Oh nice catch! I didn't mean that there wasn't an answer, just that the two explanations the OP gave couldn't be graphed in that way on something like you did - the TI-89 (good calculator!).

Yay!

That's what I was looking for. It's been awhile since I've done this kind of thing.

Jeff Eff