English

Robbins and Ardila meet Berstel

Combinatorics 2020-08-04 v2 Discrete Mathematics Formal Languages and Automata Theory Number Theory

Abstract

In 1996, Neville Robbins proved the amazing fact that the coefficient of XnX^n in the Fibonacci infinite product n2(1XFn)=(1X)(1X2)(1X3)(1X5)(1X8)=1XX2+X4+ \prod_{n \geq 2} (1-X^{F_n}) = (1-X)(1-X^2)(1-X^3)(1-X^5)(1-X^8) \cdots = 1-X-X^2+X^4 + \cdots is always either 1-1, 00, or 11. The same result was proved later by Federico Ardila using a different method. Meanwhile, in 2001, Jean Berstel gave a simple 4-state transducer that converts an "illegal" Fibonacci representation into a "legal" one. We show how to obtain the Robbins-Ardila result from Berstel's with almost no work at all, using purely computational techniques that can be performed by existing software.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.14930,
  title  = {Robbins and Ardila meet Berstel},
  author = {Jeffrey Shallit},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.14930},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:29:54.948Z