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conjecture on fractions with odd denominators
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(Conjecture)
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Egyptian fractions raise many open problems; this is one of the most famous of them.
Suppose we wish to write fractions as sums of distinct unit fractions with odd denominators. Obviously, every such sum will have a reduced representation with an odd denominator.
For instance, the greedy algorithm applied to $\frac{2}{7}$ gives $\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{28}$ but we may also write $\frac{2}{7}$ as $\frac{1}{7}+\frac{1}{9}+\frac{1}{35}+\frac{1}{315}$
It is known that we can we represent every rational number with odd denominator as a sum of distinct unit fractions with odd denominators.
However it is not known whether the greedy algorithm works when limited to odd denominators.
Conjecture 1 For any fraction $0\le \frac{a}{2k+1} < 1$ with odd denominator, if we repeatedly subtract the largest unit fraction with odd denominator that is smaller than our fraction, we will eventually reach 0.
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"conjecture on fractions with odd denominators" is owned by drini. [ full author list (4) | owner history (2) ]
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Cross-references: eventually, rational number, represent, algorithm, representation, reduced, denominators, odd, unit fractions, sums, fractions, open problems, Egyptian fractions
This is version 6 of conjecture on fractions with odd denominators, born on 2002-06-23, modified 2007-09-14.
Object id is 3128, canonical name is AnyRationalNumberWithOddDenominatorIsASumOfUnitFractionsWithOddDenominators.
Accessed 2542 times total.
Classification:
| AMS MSC: | 11A67 (Number theory :: Elementary number theory :: Other representations) | | | 11D68 (Number theory :: Diophantine equations :: Rational numbers as sums of fractions) |
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Pending Errata and Addenda
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