function for summation

[tartan5]

Obviously the formulaic approach is the best (bow to the master.....), but in thinking about optimizing the iterative approach, you could remove the iterative +1 altogether, and just sum all the array elements then add N, since the summation result is one off for each iteration........

[tst]

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Mellobuck wrote:

-Mello says math is fun

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Try telling Ben that.

[altenbach]

Just to summarize it all up, let's remember that Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 - 1855) got in trouble in elementary school when the teacher wanted to keep the students busy for a while by having them add the numbers 1...100. He solved it basically in an instant.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gauss+add+numbers

Too bad Gauss did not have LabVIEW. 😉

[Daklu]

In the story I heard it was Einstein... but I make no claims to it's truthfulness.

"I don't think that can be considered a mathematical proof, since you only show it on a single number. You have to do it with n and show that it's correct."

You are correct of course.  I should have said "a more intuitive illustration."  (I often run out of patience before working through proofs, but examples illustrate the concept for me in a much more concrete manner.)

[DFGray]

The moral of the story is a good algorithm beats a fast hack any day, and will often save you time (and math really is fun ).  I can't count the times I have mindlessly typed in a quick formula only to have the computer crunch for hours.  After killing the process and a quick trip to the CRC Standard Mathematical Tables (yes, I am showing my age, but it is still on my desk), the process would take minutes.