Related papers: Mills' constant is irrational

W.M.Schmit[11] conjectured that for any$\;\theta$ with deg$\;\theta\geq 3,$ there is no constant$\;C=C(\theta)$ so that$\;|p-q\theta|>Cq^{-1}$ for every rationa$\;p/q.$ [12,p26] states that the computations of the first several thousand…

The Mertens function is defined as $M(x) = \sum_{n \leq x} \mu(n)$, where $\mu(n)$ is the M\"obius function. The Mertens conjecture states $|M(x)/\sqrt{x}| < 1$ for $x > 1$, which was proven false in 1985 by showing $\liminf M(x)/\sqrt{x} <…

In 1949, Motzkin proved that every Euclidean domain $R$ has a minimal Euclidean function, $\phi_R$. He showed that when $R = \mathbb{Z}$, the minimal function is $\phi_{\mathbb{Z}}(x) = \lfloor \log_2 |x| \rfloor$. For over seventy years,…

We consider the amusing sequence of functions $f_n: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ given by $$ f_n(x) = \sum_{k=1}^{n}{\frac{|\sin{(k \pi x)}|}{k}}.$$ Every rational point is eventually the location of a strict local minimum of $f_n$:…

A one-to-one continuous function from a triangle to itself is defined that has both interesting number theoretic and analytic properties. This function is shown to be a natural generalization of the classical Minkowski ?(x) function. It is…

Let s be an integer greater than or equal to 2. A real number is simply normal to base s if in its base-s expansion every digit 0, 1, ..., s-1 occurs with the same frequency 1/s. Let X be the set of positive integers that are not perfect…

Following Stolarsky, we say that a natural number n is flimsy in base b if some positive multiple of n has smaller digit sum in base b than n does; otherwise it is sturdy. We develop algorithmic methods for the study of sturdy and flimsy…

Prime numbers play a key role in number theory and have applications beyond Mathematics. In particular, in the Theory of Codes and also in Cryptography, the properties of prime numbers are relevant, because, from them, it is possible to…

The Collatz conjecture can be stated in terms of the reduced Collatz function R(x) = (3x+1)/2^m (where 2^m is the larger power of 2 that divides 3x+1). The conjecture is: Starting from any odd positive integer and repeating R(x) we…

Let $b \ge 2$ be an integer and $\xi$ an irrational real number. We prove that, if the irrationality exponent of $\xi$ is equal to $2$ or slightly greater than $2$, then the $b$-ary expansion of $\xi$ cannot be `too simple', in a suitable…

For a non-square positive integer x, let k_x denote the distance between x^3 and the perfect square closest to x^3. A conjecture of Marshall Hall states that the ratios r_x = (x^(1/2))/k_x, are bounded above. (Elkies has shown that any such…

The prime-counting function $\pi(x)$ which computes the number of primes smaller or equal to a given real number has a long-standing interest in number theory. The present manuscript proposes a method to compute $\pi(x)$ with time…

We extend the results of our previous computer experiment performed on the first 2600 nontrivial zeros $\gamma_l$ of the Riemann zeta function calculated with 1000 digits accuracy to the set of 40000 first zeros given with 40000 decimal…

As rewards of reading two great papers of Hermite from 1873, we trace the historical origin of the integral Niven used in his well-known proof of the irrationality of $\pi$, uncover a rarely acknowledged simple proof by Hermite of the…

Dris conjectured in his masters thesis that the inequality $q^k < n$ always holds, if $N = {q^k}{n^2}$ is an odd perfect number with special prime $q$. In this note, we initially show that either of the two conditions $n < q^k$ or…

Define $\|n\|$ to be the complexity of $n$, the smallest number of ones needed to write $n$ using an arbitrary combination of addition and multiplication. Define $n$ to be stable if for all $k\ge 0$, we have $\|3^k n\|=\|n\|+3k$. In [7],…

A famous theorem of Zudilin states that at least one of the Riemann zeta values $\zeta(5), \zeta(7), \zeta(9), \zeta(11)$ is irrational. In this paper, we establish the $p$-adic analogue of Zudilin's theorem. As a weaker form of our result,…

A folklore proof of Euclid's theorem on the infinitude of primes uses the Euler product and the irrationality of $\zeta(2) = \pi^2/6$. A quantified form of Euclid's Theorem is Bertrand's postulate $p_{n+1} < 2p_n$. By quantifying the…

Using a recent verification of the Riemann hypothesis up to height $3\cdot 10^{12}$, we provide strong estimates on $\pi(x)$ and other prime counting functions for finite ranges of $x$. In particular, we get that…

Let f(t) be a rational function of degree at least 2 with rational coefficients. For a given rational number x_0, define x_{n+1}=f(x_n) for each nonnegative integer n. If this sequence is not eventually periodic, then the difference…