English

Joint distribution of leftmost digits in positional notation and Schanuels's conjecture

Number Theory 2026-03-12 v2

Abstract

Assume that n2n \geq 2 and B=(b1,...,bn)B = (b_1,...,b_n) has distince integer entries 3.\geq 3. For x>0x > 0 let dB(x):=(db1(x),...,dbn(x))d_B(x) := (d_{b_1}(x),...,d_{b_n}(x)) where dbi(x){1,...,bi1}d_{b_i}(x) \in \{1,...,b_i-1\} is the leftmost digit in the base-bib_i positional notation representation of x.x. We prove that if dBd_B is surjective, then lnbi\ln b_i and lnbj\ln b_j are rationally independent whenever ij.i \neq j. We prove the converse for n=2,n = 2, and for n3n \geq 3 if {lnp:p\mboxprime}\{\ln p : p \mbox{ prime} \} is algebraically independent, a condition implied by Schanuel's conjecture about transcendental numbers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.03110,
  title  = {Joint distribution of leftmost digits in positional notation and Schanuels's conjecture},
  author = {Wayne M Lawton},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.03110},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

3 pages An error was corrected by changing Proposition 1 to: Conjecture 1 implies conjecture 2