Sum of series in matlab using symsum

Question

I have the following series

I tried this code but it does not print the final result...instead gives a long line of numbers!

syms n
y = symsum(1         


        

Answer 1

how about dropping the loop and use this instead:

n=1:100
result = sum(1./sqrt(n))

>> result =

   18.5896

I'm not sure if you want to use the symbolic sum of series function in your case since you are only dealing with a simple function.

Answer 2

To answer the original question, you can convert the symbolic expression you initially got using double, to convert from a symbolic to a numeric value:

y = double(y)

Or actually:

syms n
y = double(symsum(1/sqrt(n),[1,100]))

and you get 18.5896.

Additionally, you can use eval to evaluate the symbolic expression (thanks Luis Mendo).

Yay!