Given the explicit formula: a5= 8 + 7(n − 1)

Question

What is the common difference?

Answer 1

The explicit formula for an arithmetic sequence in general is: an = a1 + d(n - 1), where a1 is the first term and d is the common difference.

Comparing this to the given explicit formula a5 = 8 + 7(n - 1), we can see that a1 = 8 and d = 7.

Therefore, the common difference is 7.