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The series:          this converges for x < 1 : Both of these expressions are the Z transform of the  exponential decay sequence.  The first expression is easier to deal with because it is smaller and easier to work with.  The following diagram uses a decay sequence with

The filter takes what ever input it is fed and every interval multiplies it by 0.75.   To see the filters time response you can thus feed in a single ping.  This results in the filter output tracing out a special response.  This  is called the impulse response. It is the same as the filter plot above.

The exponential decay is maximum entropy.  That is to say this is how concentrated things soak out into the rest of the world as they become more dilute. 

• The filter is the sum of the last 3 signal samples. 
• The signal is a pulse set of three ones.  The signal arrives 1 sample at a time.

Notice the coefficients of the multiplied polynomials are equal to the signal output values at times 0 through 4.

If instead of using X as our variable we could use Z and we would see that all this is the Z transform.   The following principle is true for the above signal and filter.  It is true in general.

    Signal convolved with Filter    Transform of signal   Transform of filter

Notice that the powers of X perform the function of place holding for location in time.  They keep track of what we can tally and these tallies correspond in power of X to time.  Time=4 corresponds to powers of 4 of X.