English

An extension of Boyd's $p$-adic algorithm for the harmonic series

Number Theory 2007-08-21 v1

Abstract

In this paper we will extend a pp-adic algorithm of Boyd in order to study the size of the set: Jp(y)={n:j=1nyjj0(modp)}.J_p(y)=\left\{n :\sum_{j=1}^{n}\frac{y^j}{j}\equiv 0(\mod p)\right\}. Suppose that pp is one of the first 100 odd primes and y{1,2,...,p1}y\in\{1,2,...,p-1\}, then our calculations prove that Jp(y)<|J_p(y)|<\infty in 24240 out of 24578 possible cases. Among other results we show that J13(9)=18763|J_{13}(9)|=18763. The paper concludes by discussing some possible applications of our method to sums involving Fibonacci numbers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0708.2439,
  title  = {An extension of Boyd's $p$-adic algorithm for the harmonic series},
  author = {Mathew D. Rogers},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0708.2439},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

17 pages, 2 tables

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:08:28.954Z