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Here, $\ \text{sgn}\ $ means the sign a.k.a signum function, and the angle units are in radians.

Based on experimentation (the Python code at the bottom), it seems that each member of the sequence $\ (a_k)_k\ $ defined by:

$$ a_k:= \sum_{n=1}^{k} \text{sgn}(\sin(n)) $$

only takes values from the set $ \{ -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3 \}. $

Is this true? And how can this be proven?

I know that $\ \displaystyle\sum_{n\in\mathbb{N} } \sin n\ $ is bounded, but I don't see how this helps. I also don't know about any of the equidistribution properties of the sequence $\ (\sin n)_n\ $ but I don't think this matters, as I doubt this would be useful because those things are asymptotic properties, not absolute properties.

But maybe I a overlooking something simple to answer my original question: however, I don't see it (obviously...). Here is my code:

import math

sineList=[]

for i in range(1000): if math.sin(i)>0: sineList.append(1) elif math.sin(i)==0: sineList.append(0) else: sineList.append(-1) print(sum(sineList))

Adam Rubinson
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0 Answers0