Related papers: Counting Egyptian fractions

For fixed integer $a\ge3$, we study the binary Diophantine equation $\frac{a}n=\frac1x+\frac1y$ and in particular the number $E_a(N)$ of $n\le N$ for which the equation has no positive integer solutions in $x, y$. The asymptotic formula…

Let $\|n\|$ stand for the integer complexity of the number $n$, i.e. for the least number of $1$'s needed to write $n$ using arbitrary many additions, multiplications, and parentheses. The two-sided inequality $3\log_3 n\leq\|n\|\leq…

We find a polynomial in three variables whose values at nonnegative integers satisfy the Erd\H{o}s-Straus Conjecture. Although the perfect squares are not covered by these values, it allows us to prove that there are arbitrarily long…

It is a well-known result of Etingof, Nikshych and Ostrik that there are finitely many inequivalent integral modular categories of any fixed rank $n$. This follows from a double-exponential bound on the maximal denominator in an Egyptian…

Egyptian decompositions of 2/D as a sum of two unit fractions are studied by means of certain divisors of D, namely r and s. Our analysis does not concern the method to find r and s, but just why the scribes have chosen a solution instead…

Define $|n|$ to be the complexity of $n$, the smallest number of 1's needed to write $n$ using an arbitrary combination of addition and multiplication. John Selfridge showed that $|n|\ge 3\log_3 n$ for all $n$. Define the defect of $n$,…

For any positive integer $n$, let $f(n)$ denote the number of solutions to the Diophantine equation $\frac{4}{n} = \frac{1}{x} + \frac{1}{y} + \frac{1}{z}$ with $x,y,z$ positive integers. The \emph{Erd\H{o}s-Straus conjecture} asserts that…

Let $f(n)$ denote the number of unordered factorizations of a positive integer $n$ into factors larger than $1$. We show that the number of distinct values of $f(n)$, less than or equal to $x$, is at most $\exp \left( C \sqrt{\frac{\log…

Let $f(N)$ denote the least integer $k$ such that, if $G$ is an abelian group of order $N$ and $A \subseteq G$ is a uniformly random $k$-element subset, then with probability at least $\tfrac12$ the subset-sum set $\{ \sum_{x \in S} x : S…

Let $\mathcal{G}$ be the greedy algorithm that, for each $\theta\in (0,1]$, produces an infinite sequence of positive integers $(a_n)_{n=1}^\infty$ satisfying $\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/a_n = \theta$. For natural numbers $p < q$, let…

For h=3 or 4, Egyptian decompositions into h unit fractions, like 2/D = 1/D1 + ... +1/Dh, were given by using (h-1) divisors (di) of D1. This ancient modus operandi, well recognized today, provides Di=DD1/di for i greater than 1.…

Let $t(N)$ denote the largest number such that $N!$ can be expressed as the product of $N$ integers greater than or equal to $t(N)$. The bound $t(N)/N = 1/e-o(1)$ was apparently established in unpublished work of Erd\H{o}s, Selfridge, and…

For given positive integers $n$ and $a$, let $R(n;\,a)$ denote the number of positive integer solutions $(x,\,y)$ of the Diophantine equation $$ {a\over n}={1\over x}+{1\over y}. $$ Write $$ S(N;\,a)=\sum_{\substack{n\leq N…

Answering a question of Erd\H{o}s and Graham, we show that for each fixed positive rational number $x$ the number of ways to write $x$ as a sum of reciprocals of distinct positive integers each at most $n$ is $2^{(c_x + o(1))n}$ for an…

We answer several questions of P. Erdos and R. Graham by showing that for any rational number r > 0, there exist integers n1, n2, ..., nk, k variable, where N < n1 < n2 < ... < nk < (e^r + o_r(1) ) N, such that r = 1/n1 + 1/n2 + ... + 1/nk.…

Let $T_o(k)$ denote the number of solutions of $\sum_{i=1}^k\frac 1{x_i}=1$ in odd numbers $1<x_1<x_2<...<x_k$. It is clear that $T_o(2k)=0$. For distinct primes $p_1, p_2,..., p_t$, let $S(p_1, p_2,...,…

Given a number field $K$ of degree $n_K$ and with absolute discriminant $d_K$, we obtain an explicit bound for the number $N_K(T)$ of non-trivial zeros (counted with multiplicity), with height at most $T$, of the Dedekind zeta function…

Let b $\ge$ 2 be an integer and let s b (n) denote the sum of the digits of the representation of an integer n in base b. For sufficiently large N , one has Card{n $\le$ N : |s 3 (n) -- s 2 (n)| $\le$ 0.1457205 log n} \textgreater{} N…

In this paper, we investigate the representations of rational numbers via continued fraction, Egyptian fraction, and Engel fraction expansions. Given $m \in \mathbb{N}$, denote by $C_m, E_m, E_m^*$ the sets of rational numbers whose…

In this article, we show that $$ \left| N (T) - \frac{T}{ 2 \pi} \log \left( \frac{T}{2\pi e}\right) \right| \le 0.1038 \log T + 0.2573 \log\log T + 9.3675 $$ where $N(T)$ denotes the number of non-trivial zeros $\rho$, with $0<\Im(\rho)…