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Equation 3 · Part 9 · Human Evolution Did Not Stop, and Medicine Is Now Steering It

subscript

qn+1=qn(1−sqn)1−sqn2q_{n+1} = \frac{q_n(1 - s q_n)}{1 - s q_n^2}
subscript

What this part means

The lower label selects a particular version, component, or indexed member of the quantity. For example, x₀ and xₜ can be values at different positions.

Its job in the formula

A subscript distinguishes a version, component, step, or member of a quantity. It does not automatically mean multiplication.

The passage around this formula

It is worth working through what that channel can and cannot do to a population’s allele frequencies, because the arithmetic is genuinely calculable and genuinely modest. Consider a recessive disease allele at population frequency q , and suppose that in some fraction of pregnancies where both parents are identified carriers, embryo testing prevents the birth of an affected (homozygous) child while parents still have the same number of children overall, drawn from the surviving unaffected and carrier embryos. The standard discrete-generation recursion for selection with coefficient s against a fully recessive genotype is: qn+1=qn(1−sqn)1−sqn2q_{n+1} = \frac{q_n(1 - s q_n)}{1 - s q_n^2}. Set s = 1 , the theoretical maximum in which…

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Learn the underlying idea

A subscript is a label attached below a symbol. It often selects a time step, component, category, or member of a sequence.

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Sources cited in the article section

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