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BJP4 Exercise 12.9: sumTo

Language/Type: Java recursion recursive programming
Author: Whitaker Brand (on 2016/09/08)

Write a method sumTo that accepts an integer parameter n and returns the sum of the first n reciprocals. In other words:

sumTo(n) returns: 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + ... + 1/n

For example, the call of sumTo(2) should return 1.5. The method should return 0.0 if passed the value 0 and should throw an IllegalArgumentException if passed a value less than 0.

Type your solution here:


This is a method problem. Write a Java method as described. Do not write a complete program or class; just the method(s) above.

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