English

A result similar to Lagrange's theorem

Number Theory 2015-12-18 v9

Abstract

Generalized octagonal numbers are those p8(x)=x(3x2)p_8(x)=x(3x-2) with xZx\in\mathbb Z. In this paper we mainly show that every positive integer can be written as the sum of four generalized octagonal numbers one of which is odd. This result is similar to Lagrange's theorem on sums of four squares. Moreover, for 3535 triples (b,c,d)(b,c,d) with 1bcd1\le b\le c\le d (including (2,3,4)(2,3,4) and (2,4,8)(2,4,8)), we prove that any nonnegative integer can be exprssed as p8(w)+bp8(x)+cp8(y)+dp8(z)p_8(w)+bp_8(x)+cp_8(y)+dp_8(z) with w,x,y,zZw,x,y,z\in\mathbb Z. We also pose several conjectures for further research.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1503.03743,
  title  = {A result similar to Lagrange's theorem},
  author = {Zhi-Wei Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.03743},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

21 pages, final published version

R2 v1 2026-06-22T08:51:17.534Z