English

Continued Fractions and Unique Additive Partitions

Combinatorics 2016-09-07 v1

Abstract

A partition of the positive integers into sets AA and BB {\em avoids} a set SNS\subset\N if no two distinct elements in the same part have a sum in SS. If the partition is unique, SS is {\em uniquely avoidable.} For any irrational α>1\alpha>1, Chow and Long constructed a partition which avoids the numerators of all convergents to α\alpha, and conjectured that the set SαS_\alpha which this partition avoided was uniquely avoidable. We prove that the set of numerators of convergents is uniquely avoidable if and only if the continued fraction for α\alpha has infinitely many partial quotients equal to 1. We also construct the set SαS_\alpha and show that it is always uniquely avoidable.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/9704220,
  title  = {Continued Fractions and Unique Additive Partitions},
  author = {David J. Grabiner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/9704220},
  year   = {2016}
}