Related papers: A New Operator for Egyptian Fractions
Any rational number can be written as the sum of distinct unit fractions. In this survey paper we review some of the many interesting questions concerning such 'Egyptian fraction' decompositions, and recent progress concerning them.
A unit fraction representation of a rational number $r$ is a finite sum of reciprocals of positive integers that equals $r$. Of particular interest is the case when all denominators in the representation are distinct, resulting in an…
This paper attempts to prove the Sylvester's conjecture using Egyptian Fractions with two key ingredients. First, creating a set of operators that completely generates all possible Egyptian fraction of 1. And second, to detect patterns in…
We explore a novel link between two seemingly disparate mathematical concepts: Egyptian fractions and fractals. By examining the decomposition of rationals into sums of distinct unit fractions, a practice rooted in ancient Egyptian…
Every positive rational number has representations as Egyptian fractions (sums of reciprocals of distinct positive integers) with arbitrarily many terms and with arbitrarily large denominators. However, such representations normally use a…
An Egyptian fraction is a sum of distinct unit fractions (reciprocals of positive integers). We show that every rational number has Egyptian fraction representations where the number of terms is of the same order of magnitude as the largest…
We give a sharp upper bound for the entries of the representations of a rational number as a sum of Egyptian fractions.
An Egyptian fraction is a sum of the form $1/n_1 + \cdots + 1/n_r$ where $n_1, \dots, n_k$ are distinct positive integers. We prove explicit lower bounds for the cardinality of the set $E_N$ of rational numbers that can be represented by…
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…
Multiplication and exponentiation can be defined by equations in which one of the operands is written as the sum of powers of two. When these powers are non-negative integers, the operand is integer; without this restriction it is a…
Resolving a conjecture of Zhi-Wei Sun, we prove that every rational number can be represented as a sum of distinct unit fractions whose denominators are practical numbers. The same method applies to allowed denominators that are closed…
The notion of an \emph{Egyptian} integral domain $D$ (where every fraction can be written as a sum of unit fractions with denominators from $D$) is extended here to the notion that a ring $R$ is \emph{$W$-Egyptian}, with $W$ a…
For any integer $N \geq 1$, let $\mathfrak{E}_N$ be the set of all Egyptian fractions employing denominators less than or equal to $N$. We give upper and lower bounds for the cardinality of $\mathfrak{E}_N$, proving that $$ \frac{N}{\log N}…
Let $\mathcal A = (A_1,\ldots, A_n)$ be a sequence of nonempty finite sets of positive real numbers, and let $\mathcal{B} = (B_1,\ldots, B_n)$ be a sequence of infinite discrete sets of positive real numbers. A weighted real Egyptian number…
We obtain two new algorithms for partial fraction decompositions; the first is over algebraically closed fields, and the second is over general fields. These algorithms takes $O(M^2)$ time, where $M$ is the degree of the denominator of the…
Given an integer partition of $n$ into distinct parts, the sum of the reciprocal parts is an example of an egyptian fraction. We study this statistic under the uniform measure on distinct parts partitions of $n$ and prove that, as $n \to…
We find the closest approximation to 1 from below using a sum of $n$ Egyptian fractions.
In this paper, we introduce a new method for calculating fractional integrals and differentials. The method involves an equation that we have obtained from infinite applied integration by parts. The equation works for special class of…
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.…
The focus of this note is to formulate the algorithms and give the examples used by Fibonacci in Liber Abaci to expand any fraction into a sum of unit fractions. The description in Liber Abaci is all verbal and the examples are numbers…