how do you find a common ratio in a geometric sequence

Question

jdoe0001 · Answer

do you have one?   what are the terms?

anonymous · Answer

With this assignment, it's the height of the ball's starting point and the height of when it comes back up so there are variations with the data and I would have to find the average. Hold on, I'll show you what I'm talking about.

anonymous · Answer

attachment

jdoe0001 · Answer

hmm    in short

a geometric sequence means

starting term, then
to get any subsequent terms,you'd multiply the current one by some number

2,4, 8, 16
will be
2 , 2*2 = 4, 4*2 = 8, 8*2 = 16, and so on

so, since it's a multiplication
to find the common ratio, or the multiplier, simply divide the bigger by the smaller
that is, the "next term" by the "current term"

or 2, 4, 8, 16
 16/8 = 2   <--- common ratio

jdoe0001 · Answer

in the page you have
you're expected to get not a "common" one, but one that varies from term to term
so you're expected to usee the "average" of all the ratios

so you have to find the ratio from term to term, that'd give you 3 ratios
divide them by 3, to get the average

geerky42 · Answer

Geometric sequence in generally looks like this: $$\{a, ar, ar^2, ar^3, ...\}$$Where $a$ is first term and $r$ is common ratio.

Just select any term, then divide it by previous term. You will get common ratio this way.

$\dfrac{ar^n}{ar^{n-1}} = r$