STEP Support - Assignment 24
This STEP support module involves integration and an 18th century series problem. Previous assignments can be found here, but you can do this one without having done the others first. STEP questions are difficult, they are supposed to be and you should expect to get stuck. However, as you tackle more and more STEP questions you will develop a range of problem solving skills (and spend less time "being stuck").
About this assignment
The assignment is published as a pdf file below. Each STEP Support assignment module starts with a warm-up exercise, followed by preparatory work leading to a STEP question. Finally, there is a warm-down exercise. The warm up for this assignment discusses two more integration techniques. The main STEP question (1998 STEP 2 Question 4) has an integration problem for you to solve. The final question is about the 18th century Basel problem.
Further reading
For a discussion about "well behaved" functions and "pathological" functions see this Wikipedia article. There is more on the Basel problem in this Plus article, and more about this and other infinite series in this Plus article.
Hints, support and self evaluation
The “Hints and partial solutions for Assignment 24” file gives suggestions on how you can tackle the questions, and some common pitfalls to avoid, as well as some partial solutions and answers.
