What is the nth term for 2 5 10 17 26 37?

Answer 1

One method is an = n2 +1.
So the first term is 1+1
the second is 22 +1=5
the third is 32 +1=10
the fourth is 16+1=17 etc.

There is also a recursive way to find it. I only point it out so you can see there may be more than one way to denote the nth term in a sequence. This method uses recursion.


2+0=2=a1
2+3=5=a2
5+5=10 =a3
10+7=17 =a4
17+9=26 =a5
26+11=37 =a6


So nth term is easy recursively

nth term=an =an-1 +(2(n-1)+1) =an-1 +(2n-1) =
for example n=4 is the 4th term.
a4 =a3 +(8-1)=10+7=17
the 5th term a5 =17+(2x5-1)=17+9=26