That harmonic series variant absolutely

Previously I discussed a variant on the harmonic series, $\sum_{n=1}^\infty\cos n/n$. Last time we showed that

\[ \sum_{n=1}^\infty\frac{\cos n}{n} = \sum_{n=1}^\infty\sum_{m=1}^n\cos m\Bigl(\frac{1}{n}-\frac{1}{n+1}\Bigr) , \]

and then showed that the series on the right converges absolutely, by comparison with the series $\sum_{n=1}^\infty3/n^2$.

Since the series on the right converges and the two series have the same value, the series on the left also converges. However, this does not imply that the series on the left also converges absolutely. As a trivial counterexample, if a conditionally convergent series sums to $c$ then $c\sum_{n=1}^\infty \href{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronecker_delta}{\delta_{n,1}}$ is an absolutely convergent series which sums to the same value. 🙂

In this post, we answer the question of whether $\sum_{n=1}^\infty\cos n/n$ converges absolutely or not.

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