Applying a function successively in R

At the R in Finance conference Paul Teetor gave a fantastic talk about Fast(er) R Code. Paul mentioned the common higher-order function Reduce, which I hadn't used before.

Reduce allows me to apply a function successively over a vector.

What does that mean? Well, if I would like to add up the figures 1 to 5, I could say:

add <- function(x,y) x+y
add(add(add(add(1,2),3),4),5)
or
Reduce(add, 1:5)

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