Related papers: Dense Egyptian Fractions

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.…

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…

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…

Let $\mathcal{G}$ be the greedy algorithm that, for each $\theta\in (0,1]$, produces an infinite sequence of positive integers $(a_n)_{n=1}^\infty$ satisfying $\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/a_n = \theta$. For natural numbers $p < q$, let…

In this paper, we investigate the representations of rational numbers via continued fraction, Egyptian fraction, and Engel fraction expansions. Given $m \in \mathbb{N}$, denote by $C_m, E_m, E_m^*$ the sets of rational numbers whose…

For a positive rational $\alpha$, call a set of distinct positive integers $\{a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_r\}$ an $\alpha$-partition of $n$, if the sum of the $a_i$ is equal to $n$ and the sum of the reciprocals of the $a_i$ is equal to $\alpha$.…

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…

Refining an estimate of Croot, Dobbs, Friedlander, Hetzel and Pappalardi, we show that for all $k \geq 2$, the number of integers $1 \leq a \leq n$ such that the equation $a/n = 1/m_1 + \dotsc + 1/m_k$ has a solution in positive integers…

For given positive integers $n$ and $a$, let $R(n;\,a)$ denote the number of positive integer solutions $(x,\,y)$ of the Diophantine equation $$ {a\over n}={1\over x}+{1\over y}. $$ Write $$ S(N;\,a)=\sum_{\substack{n\leq N…

If an irreducible fraction $\frac mn>0$ can be decomposed into the sum of several irreducible proper fractions with different denominators, and the positive number smaller than $\frac mn$ in fractional ideal $\frac 1n\mathbb Z$ can not be…

For a fixed positive integer $m$ and any partition $m = m_1 + m_2 + \cdots + m_e$ , there exists a sequence $\{n_{i}\}_{i=1}^{k}$ of positive integers such that $$m=\frac{1}{n_{1}}+\frac{1}{n_{2}}+\cdots+\frac{1}{n_{k}},$$ with the property…

We show that each rational number $r$, $0\le r<1$, occurs as the fractional part of a Dedekind sum $S(m,n)$.

Given a positive rational number $n/d$ with $d$ odd, its odd greedy expansion starts with the largest odd denominator unit fraction at most $n/d$, adds the largest odd denominator unit fraction so the sum is at most $n/d$, and continues as…

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…

From varying Egyptian fraction equations we obtain generalizations of primary pseudoperfect numbers and Giuga numbers which we call prime power psuedoperfect numbers and prime power Giuga numbers respectively. We show that a sequence of…

For a given irrational number, we consider the properties of best rational approximations of given parities. There are three different kinds of rational numbers according to the parity of the numerator and denominator, say odd/odd, even/odd…

We consider the question of approximating any real number $\alpha$ by sums of $n$ rational numbers $\frac{a_1}{q_1} + \frac{a_2}{q_2} + ... + \frac{a_n}{q_n}$ with denominators $1 \leq q_1, q_2, ..., q_n \leq N$. This leads to an inquiry on…

Simplification of fractional powers of positive rational numbers and of sums, products and powers of such numbers is taught in beginning algebra. Such numbers can often be expressed in many ways, as this article discusses in some detail.…

It is a well-known result of Etingof, Nikshych and Ostrik that there are finitely many inequivalent integral modular categories of any fixed rank $n$. This follows from a double-exponential bound on the maximal denominator in an Egyptian…

In this article, we present a binary tree with vertices given by rational functions $p(x)/q(x)$; the root and functional derivation of children are inspired by continued fractions. We prove some special properties of the tree. For example,…