While thinking of problems recursively is often easier than thinking of them absolutely (at least after you get used to thinking in this way), our ultimate goal is to move beyond this recursive description. For sequences, we want to find closed formulas for the \(n\)th term of the sequence. For proofs, we want to know the statement is actually true for a particular \(n\) (not only under the assumption that the statement is true for the previous value of \(n\)). In this chapter we saw some methods for moving from recursive descriptions to absolute descriptions.
in-context