Related papers: On the irrationality of certain super-polynomially…

Answering a question of Erd\H{o}s and Graham, we show that the double exponential growth condition $\limsup_{n\to\infty}a_n^{1/\phi^n}=\infty$ for a strictly increasing sequence of positive integers $\{a_n\}_{n=1}^\infty$ is sufficient for…

Let $\omega(n)$ denote the number of distinct prime factors of $n$. Assuming a suitably uniform version of the prime $k$-tuples conjecture, we show that the number \begin{align*} \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{\omega(n)}{2^n} \end{align*} is…

Borwein, Bailey, and Girgensohn (2004) asked whether the following infinite series converges: the sum of $(\frac{2}{3} + \frac{1}{3} \sin n)^n / n$ over all positive integers $n$. We prove that their series converges. The proof uses the…

Using basic tools of mathematical analysis and elementary probability theory we address several problems on the irrationality of series of distinct unit fractions, $\sum_k 1/a_k$. In particular, we study subseries of the Lambert series…

Let $F_1=1,F_2=1,\ldots$ be the Fibonacci sequence. Motivated by the identity $\displaystyle\sum_{k=0}^{\infty}\frac{1}{F_{2^k}}=\frac{7-\sqrt{5}}{2}$, Erd\"os and Graham asked whether $\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{\infty}\frac{1}{F_{n_k}}$ is…

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…

In this paper, we establish new irrationality criteria for certain sparse power series. As applications of these criteria, we generalize a result of Erd\H{o}s and obtain several irrationality results for various infinite series involving…

We show that sequences of positive integers whose ratios $a_n^2/a_{n+1}$ lie within a specific range are almost uniquely determined by their reciprocal sums. For instance, the Sylvester sequence is uniquely characterized as the only…

We consider integer sequences that satisfy a recursion of the form $x_{n+1} = P(x_n)$ for some polynomial $P$ of degree $d > 1$. If such a sequence tends to infinity, then it satisfies an asymptotic formula of the form $x_n \sim A…

For positive integers $k$ and $n$ let $\sigma_k(n)$ denote the sum of the $k$th powers of the divisors of $n$. Erd\H{o}s and Kac asked whether, for every $k$, the number $\alpha_k = \sum_{n\geq 1} \frac{\sigma_k(n)}{n!}$ is irrational. It…

By $(\mathbb{Z}^+)^{\infty}$ we denote the set of all the infinite sequences $\mathcal{S}=\{s_i\}_{i=1}^{\infty}$ of positive integers (note that all the $s_i$ are not necessarily distinct and not necessarily monotonic). Let $f(x)$ be a…

In this paper we review a general proof for the irrationality property of numbers which take a certain form of infinite sums.

Given a function $f(n)$ periodic of period $q\geq 1$ and an irrational number $0<\alpha\leq 1$, Chatterjee and Gun proved that the series $F(s,f,\alpha)=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\frac{f(n)}{(n+\alpha)^s}$ has infinitely many zeros for $\sigma>1$…

We show that the Lambert series $f(x)=\sum d(n) x^n$ is irrational at $x=1/b$ for negative integers $b < -1$ using an elementary proof that finishes an incomplete proof of Erdos.

A general technique for proving the irrationality of the zeta constants $\zeta(s)$ for odd $s = 2n + 1 \geq 3$ from the known irrationality of the beta constants $L(2n+1)$ is developed in this note. The results on the irrationality of the…

Let $d(\cdot)$ denote the natural density on the positive integers. We characterize all sets $A,B$ with positive density satisfying $d(A+B)=d(A)+d(B)$, under the assumption that the two sets are not both contained in a proper finite union…

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…

In this note, we show that $S(n,r):=\sum_{k=0}^{n} \binom{n}{k}\frac{k}{k+r}$ is not an integer for any positive integer $n$ and $r\in \{1,2,3,4,5,6\}$ and for $n\le r-1$. This gives a partial answer to a conjecture of [3].

We show that for any sequence $f: {\bf N} \to \{-1,+1\}$ taking values in $\{-1,+1\}$, the discrepancy $$ \sup_{n,d \in {\bf N}} \left|\sum_{j=1}^n f(jd)\right| $$ of $f$ is infinite. This answers a question of Erd\H{o}s. In fact the…

We prove that the Fourier cosine series $\sum_{k=1}^{\infty}(-1)^{k+1}\frac{r^k\cos{k\phi}}{k+2}$ assumes its maximum value at $\phi = 0$ for $\phi \in [0, \pi)$ regardless of $r$ if $r \in (0, 1]$. This was first proved by Arias de Reyna…