Related papers: A certain reciprocal power sum is never an integer
Let $n$ and $k$ be integers such that $1\le k\le n$ and $f(x)$ be a nonzero polynomial of integer coefficients such that $f(m)\ne 0$ for any positive integer $m$. For any $k$-tuple $\vec{s}=(s_1, ..., s_k)$ of positive integers, we define…
Let $n$ be a positive integer. In 1915, Theisinger proved that if $n\ge 2$, then the $n$-th harmonic sum $\sum_{k=1}^n\frac{1}{k}$ is not an integer. Let $a$ and $b$ be positive integers. In 1923, Nagell extended Theisinger's theorem by…
In this paper, we prove the following result: {quote} Let $\A$ be an infinite set of positive integers. For all positive integer $n$, let $\tau_n$ denote the smallest element of $\A$ which does not divide $n$. Then we have $$\lim_{N \to +…
Erd\"{o}s and Niven proved in 1946 that for any positive integers $m$ and $d$, there are at most finitely many integers $n$ for which at least one of the elementary symmetric functions of $1/m, 1/(m+d), ..., 1/(m+(n-1)d)$ are integers.…
Let $\mathbf{S}$ be the set of all finite or infinite increasing sequences of positive integers. For a sequence $S=\{s(n)\}, n\geq1,$ from $\mathbf{S},$ let us call a positive number $N$ an exponentially $S$-number $(N\in E(S)),$ if all…
We express some general type of infinite series such as $$ \sum^\infty_{n=1}\frac{F(H_n^{(m)}(z),H_n^{(2m)}(z),\ldots,H_n^{(\ell m)}(z))} {(n+z)^{s_1}(n+1+z)^{s_2}\cdots (n+k-1+z)^{s_k}}, $$ where $F(x_1,\ldots,x_\ell)\in\mathbb…
For a fixed positive integer $m$ and any partition $m = m_1 + m_2 + \cdots + m_e$ , there exists a sequence $\{n_{i}\}_{i=1}^{k}$ of positive integers such that $$m=\frac{1}{n_{1}}+\frac{1}{n_{2}}+\cdots+\frac{1}{n_{k}},$$ with the property…
Let $f\in\mathbb{Z}[X]$ be quadratic or cubic polynomial. We prove that there exists an integer $G_f\geq 2$ such that for every integer $k\geq G_f$ one can find infinitely many integers $n\geq 0$ with the property that none of…
It is known that for an arbitrary positive integer \(n\) the sequence \(S(x^n)=(1^n, 2^n, \ldots)\) is complete, meaning that every sufficiently large integer is a sum of distinct \(n\)th powers of positive integers. We prove that every…
We give a characterization of all pairs $(k,n)$ of positive integers for which the ratio $$ \frac{1^k-2^k+3^k-\dots+(-1)^{n+1} n^k}{1^k-2^k+3^k-\dots+(-1)^{n}(n-1)^k} $$ of two consecutive alternating power sums is an integer.
If \(A \) is a set of natural numbers containing \(0 \), then there is a unique nonempty "reciprocal" set \(B \) of natural numbers (containing \(0 \)) such that every positive integer can be written in the form \(a + b \), where \(a \in A…
It is well known that the harmonic sum $H_n(1)=\sum_{k=1}^n\frac{1}{k}$ is never an integer for $n>1$. In 1946, Erd\H{o}s and Niven proved that the nested multiple harmonic sum $H_n(\{1\}^r)=\sum_{1\le k_1<\dots<k_r\le n}\frac{1}{k_1\cdots…
Two theorems of elmentary arithmetic, one stating that the sum of the reciprocals of any number of consecutive positive integers is never an integer, and a generalization thereof by Trygve Nagell, are shown to be provable inside a very weak…
Let $f(n)$ denote the maximum sum of the side lengths of $n$ non-overlapping squares packed inside a unit square. We prove that $f(n^2+1) = n$ for all positive integers $n$ if and only if the sum $\sum_{k\geq 1}(f(k^2+1)-k)$ converges. We…
We give a negative answer to a question by Paul Erd\H{o}s and Ronald Graham on whether the series \[ \sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{(n+1)(n+2)\cdots(n+f(n))} \] has an irrational sum whenever $(f(n))_{n=1}^{\infty}$ is a sequence of positive…
Let $S= \{ p_1, \ldots, p_s\}$ be a finite, non-empty set of distinct prime numbers and $(U_{n})_{n \geq 0}$ be a linear recurrence sequence of integers of order $r$. For any positive integer $k,$ we define $(U_j^{(k)})_{j\geq 1}$ an…
A beautiful theorem of Zeckendorf states that every positive integer can be uniquely decomposed as a sum of non-consecutive Fibonacci numbers $\{F_n\}$, where $F_1 = 1$, $F_2 = 2$ and $F_{n+1} = F_n + F_{n-1}$. For general recurrences…
Let $\C{G}(z):=\sum_{n=0}^\infty z^{2^n}(1-z^{2^n})^{-1}$ denote the generating function of the ruler function, and $\C{F}(z):=\sum_{n=0}^\infty z^{2^n}(1+z^{2^n})^{-1}$; note that the special value $\C{F}(1/2)$ is the sum of the…
Let $G$ be a finite abelian group. For any positive integers $d$ and $m$, let $\varphi_G(d)$ be the number of elements in $G$ of order $d$ and $\mathsf M(G,m)$ be the set of all zero-sum sequences of length $m$. In this paper, for any…
For integer $k \geq 0$, let $S_k$ denote the sum of the $k$th powers of the first $n$ positive integers $1^k + 2^k + \cdots + n^k$. For any given $k$, the power sum $S_k$ can in principle be determined by differentiating $k$ times (with…