There’s a reference in Bertrand Russell's book: Analysis of matter, pg 3, third paragraph - continuing onto Pg 4.

He talks about R as relating a term to its successive term in a sequence - using the sum of first "n" odd numbers equaling n^2 as an example.

I'm not sure how he defines "R" to start with in this example. 

Then introduces R^x_n, which relates a sequence of numbers together?? 

I'm not sure if I'm reading his notation correctly. 

Any input on this passage would be helpful. 

There is link to the book below.

http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/russell-anal-matter.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is defined in Principia Mathematica, by Russell & Whitehead, if I'm not mistaken (see footnote on mentioned page.)

But it seems to refer to an abstract recursion or rule, not necessarily numerical.

Ok that's interesting.

I can only find as copy of Principia Mathematica at the University library, of which I'm not a current member.