Need help with long equation

The follow looks decent. Just avoid using eqnarray.

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\lipsum*[1]
\begin{align}
      P(0) &= (1 - A) \nonumber \\
      P(1) &= (1 - A)(e^A - 1) \nonumber \\
  P(i + 1) &= \frac{1}{P(0,A)} \biggl\{
                P(i) - \bigl[ P(0) + P(1) \bigr] \cdot P(i, A) \nonumber \\
           &\quad {} - \sum_{\nu = 2}^i P(\nu) \cdot P(i - \nu + 1, A) \biggr\}. 
\end{align}
\lipsum*[2]

\end{document}

A slighly different layout with àlignatandfleqn:

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\usepackage{nccmath, mathtools, amssymb}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[47]
\begin{fleqn}
\begin{alignat}{2}%
 & P(0) = (1 - A) \notag \\
 & P(1) = (1 - A)\mathrlap{(e^A - 1)}\notag \\
 & P(i + 1) =
\frac{1}{P(0,A)}\Bigl\{P(i) &&- [P(0) + P(1)] \cdot \mathrlap{P(i,A) }\notag\\
 & &\mathllap{-\sum_{\nu=2}^{i} P(\nu) }& \cdot P(i - \nu + 1, A) \Bigr\}.
\label{md1ssprob}
\end{alignat}
\end{fleqn}

\end{document}