Related papers: On the ubiquity of Sidon sets
We consider the problem of minimizing the size of a family of sets G such that every subset of 1,...,n can be written as a disjoint union of at most k members of G, where k and n are given numbers. This problem originates in a real-world…
The classical Ulam sequence is defined recursively as follows: $a_1=1$, $a_2=2$, and $a_n$, for $n > 2$, is the smallest integer not already in the sequence that can be written uniquely as the sum of two distinct earlier terms. This…
Given a sequence converging to zero, we consider the set of numbers which are sums of (infinite, finite, or empty) subsequences. When the original sequence is not absolutely summable, the subsum set is an unbounded closed interval which…
Let D\subseteq \mathbb{R} be closed and discrete and f:D^n \to \mathbb{R} be such that f(D^n) is somewhere dense. We show that (\mathbb{R},+,\cdot,f) defines the set of integers. As an application, we get that for every a,b \in \mathbb{R}…
The arithmetic of natural numbers has a natural and simple encoding within sets, and the simplest set whose structure is not that of any natural number extends this set-theoretic representation to positive and negative integers. The…
Let G be an additive abelian group whose finite subgroups are all cyclic. Let A_1,...,A_n (n>1) be finite subsets of G with cardinality k>0, and let b_1,...,b_n be pairwise distinct elements of G with odd order. We show that for every…
A set S of unit vectors in n-dimensional Euclidean space is called spherical two-distance set, if there are two numbers a and b, and inner products of distinct vectors of S are either a or b. The largest cardinality g(n) of spherical…
We discuss the summation of certain series defined by counting blocks of digits in the $B$-ary expansion of an integer. For example, if $s_2(n)$ denotes the sum of the base-2 digits of $n$, we show that $\sum_{n \geq 1} s_2(n)/(2n(2n+1)) =…
We show that there exist infinite sets $A = \{a_1,a_2,\dots\}$ and $B = \{b_1,b_2,\dots\}$ of natural numbers such that $a_i+b_j$ is prime whenever $1 \leq i < j$.
In this entry point into the subject, combining two elementary proofs, we decrease the gap between the upper and lower bounds by $0.2\%$ in a classical combinatorial number theory problem. We show that the maximum size of a Sidon set of $\{…
Let $A$ be a nonempty finite set of $k$ integers. Given a subset $B$ of $A$, the sum of all elements of $B$, denoted by $s(B)$, is called the subset sum of $B$. For a nonnegative integer $\alpha$ ($\leq k$), let \[\Sigma_{\alpha}…
For a nonempty finite set $A$ of positive integers, let $\gcd\left(A\right)$ denote the greatest common divisor of the elements of $A$. Let $f\left(n\right)$ and $\Phi\left(n\right)$ denote, respectively, the number of subsets $A$ of…
Let A be a finite subset of the integers or, more generally, of any abelian group, written additively. The set A has "more sums than differences" if |A+A|>|A-A|. A set with this property is called an MSTD set. This paper gives explicit…
Let $p$ be a prime number. We say that a positive integer $n$ is a Sylow $p$-number if there exists a finite group having exactly $n$ Sylow $p$-subgroups. When $p=2$, every odd integer is a Sylow $2$-number. In contrast, when $p$ is odd,…
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a simple graph. A dominating set of $G$ is a subset $D\subseteq V$ such that every vertex not in $D$ is adjacent to at least one vertex in $D$.The cardinality of a smallest dominating set of $G$, denoted by $\gamma(G)$, is…
Let $\alpha_1, \cdots, \alpha_d$ be real numbers, and let $S$ be the set of integers $s$ so that $||\alpha_i s||_{\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z}}>\delta$ for some $i$ and some fixed $\delta>0$. We prove $S$ is not \enquote{$2$-large}, i.e. there is…
Suppose that $A$ is a finite, nonempty subset of a cyclic group of either infinite or prime order. We show that if the difference set $A-A$ is ``not too large'', then there is a nonzero group element with at least as many as…
We prove that if A is a subset of the primes, and the lower density of A in the primes is larger than 1/2, then every sufficiently large even integer can be written as the sum of eight primes from A. The constant 1/2 in this statement is…
A numerical set is a co-finite subset of the natural numbers that contains zero. Its Frobenius number is the largest number in its complement. Each numerical set has an associated semigroup $A(T)=\{t\mid t+T\subseteq T\}$, which has the…