Related papers: Sylvester's Conjecture and the Egyptian Fractions
This paper introduces a new equation for rewriting two unit fractions to another two unit fractions. This equation is useful for optimizing the elements of an Egyptian Fraction. Parity of the elements of the Egyptian Fractions are also…
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.
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…
We find the closest approximation to 1 from below using a sum of $n$ Egyptian fractions.
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…
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…
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…
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…
This document presents an alternative proof of Sylvester's theorem stating that "the product of $n$ consecutive numbers strictly greater than $n$ is divisible by a prime strictly greater than $n$". In addition, the paper proposes stronger…
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…
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…
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}…
In a previous paper the second author developed a new approach to the abelian p-adic Stark Conjecture at s=1 and stated some related conjectures. This paper develops and applies techniques using p-adic measures and continued fractions to…
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…
From the Rhind Papyrus and other extant sources, we know that the ancient Egyptians were very iterested in expressing a given fraction into a sum of unit fractions, that is fractions whose numerators are equal to 1. One of the problems that…
Let $n,d$, and $k$ be positive integers where $n$ and $d$ are coprime. Our two main results are Theorem 1. There is a partition of the infinite interval $[kd,\infty)$ of positive integers into a family of finite sets $X$ for which the sum…
We give a sharp upper bound for the entries of the representations of a rational number as a sum of Egyptian fractions.
The union-closed sets conjecture (Frankl's conjecture) says that for any finite union-closed family of finite sets, other than the family consisting only of the empty set, there exists an element that belongs to at least half of the sets in…
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 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…