In mathematics, what is the difference between sum and summation?

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kerryk | 2 years, 1 month ago

I'll give an example that will help explain the difference. Take a set of numbers (1,3,4,6,7,8,10). If I say the sum of the numbers is 39 I am adding all the numbers together 1+3+4+6+7+8+10. When seeing the symbol ∑ that is when we say summation and it's exactly the same as just adding the numbers like I did previously, just different notation. Say the set of numbers is denoted X(sub n) = (1,3,4,6,7,8,10) n represents the number of values in the set which is 7 in this case. In summation notation it would be ∑ X(sub i) with i ranging from to to n.. So the first number X(sub 1) is 1, the next is X(sub 2) which is 3, next is X(sub 3) which is 4 and so on.. The summation is just adding all the numbers together 1+3+4+6+7+8+10.

Sum is the result of the summation, summation is the ∑ which is simply adding all the numbers together

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runghen23 | 2 years, 1 month ago

Summation is the operation of combining a sequence of numbers using addition and sum is the result. We use summation when we use the ∑ symbol, otherwise we usually use sum.

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