Today’s the Nth day of Christmas (The tenth day, to be precise) — as a function of N, about how many gifts total has my true love given me since the first day of Christmas? 

It’s cooler to have a quick estimate of the rate at which the number of gifts grows, rather than the exact formula; there’s a quick way to get a rough sense of the right answer. 

Does the total number of gifts grow exponentially? Factorially? As the square of N? Something else?

Don’t peek until you want the answer!

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Ok: on the Nth day, my true love gives to me 1+2+3+…+N gifts; you might know the formula for that sum, and it’s a good exercise to work it out again, but the really important thing is that when you sum up consecutive integers, the total grows about like N^2 (ignoring pesky constants) 

In fact, if we sum up consecutive kth powers, the total grows about like N^(k+1). This is really a kind of counting version of integration (and in fact, is exactly one of the tools ancient mathematicians, such as Archimedes, used to work out certain integral calculus problems 2000 years before Newton and Leibnitz invented calculus!) So if on day n, we receive about n^2 gifts, by day N, we’ve received about 1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 + … + N^2 gifts, for a total of roughly N^3.  

Thus the total grows about like N^3, ignoring pesky constants and lower level terms. The exact formula, should you need it for checking your true love’s love, is going to be N^3/6 + N^2/2 + N/3; on day twelve you should be expecting a total of 364 gifts!
 

[/spoiler]

Remarkably, 2011 is the sum of 11 consecutive prime numbers! 

2011 = 157 + 163 + 173 + 179 + 181 + 191 + 193 + 197 + 199 + 211

And of course 2011 is itself a prime number!

What a great prospect for a prime year — our very best wishes to you.