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[parent] conjecture on fractions with odd denominators (Conjecture)

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.




"conjecture on fractions with odd denominators" is owned by drini. [ full author list (4) | owner history (2) ]
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See Also: Sierpinski Erdős egyptian fraction conjecture


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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 MSC11A67 (Number theory :: Elementary number theory :: Other representations)
 11D68 (Number theory :: Diophantine equations :: Rational numbers as sums of fractions)

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