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Summary:
Understanding the concept of infinity, which is one of the fundamental concepts of mathematics, assumes significant degree of cognitive maturity of every individual. For this reason this concept is a source of many obstacles and difficulties in a teaching process. Students meet for the first time with the notion of infinity in an explicit form in connection with the concept of convergence of sequences and series. As confirmed by several studies, many practicing teachers or our own experience, the concept of the sum of infinite series belongs to difficult and problematic ones. In our opinion, one of the obstacles that students face in relation to the concepts of convergence and the sum of the infinite series is confusion of meanings of terms infinite and unbounded. The contribution presents several visual representations of the sum of infinite series, which may help students to overcome some difficulties related to the thorough understanding of this concept.
References:
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