Final answer:
To find the number of letters in the 7th row, we use the arithmetic sequence formula L_n = L_1 + (n-1)d. With L_1 being 5, n equal to 7, and the common difference d being 4, we calculate that there are 29 letters in the 7th row.
Step-by-step explanation:
To find out how many letters are in the 7th row on the whiteboard, we need to analyze the pattern given: there are 5 letters in the first row, 9 in the second, and 13 in the third, and so on. This indicates that each row has 4 more letters than the previous row. We can express this using an arithmetic sequence formula where the number of letters in the nth row is given by:
L_n = L_1 + (n-1)d
where:
- L_n is the number of letters in the nth row,
- L_1 is the number of letters in the first row,
- n is the row number, and
- d is the common difference between the rows.
Here, L_1 = 5 (number of letters in the first row), d = 4 (since each subsequent row has 4 more letters than the previous one), and n = 7 (since we want to find the number of letters in the seventh row).
Putting these values into the formula gives us:
L_7 = 5 + (7-1)4
L_7 = 5 + 24
L_7 = 29
Therefore, there are 29 letters in the 7th row on the whiteboard.