Factoring Factorial n

DOI10.2307/2588996MaRDI QIDQ4222427zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Richard K. Guy, John Selfridge

Publication date 22 February 1999

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.2307/2588996

zbMATH Keywords

factors of factorials

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Binomial coefficients; factorials; (q)-identities (11B65) Other combinatorial number theory (11B75)

Review text

The authors discuss the following old question of P. Erdős: Let us express \(n!\) as a product of \(n\) positive integers, the smallest of which is as large as possible, i.e. if \(n!= a_1a_2\cdots a_n\), \(a_1\leq a_2\leq\cdots\leq a_n\), determine the largest \(a_1\) possible. By Stirling's formula \(a_1\leq (n/e)(1+ o(1))\), and over 15 years ago Erdős, Selfridge and Strauss announced that they had a proof that this was the best possible, but the proof was lost. The authors could prove that, for sufficiently large \(n\), \(n!\) can be expressed as the product of \(n\) factors, each greater than \(n/4\) and they conjectured that apart from the case \(n= 56\), \(\max a_1\geq [2n/7]\), and for \(n\geq 300,000\), \(\max a_1\geq n/3\).

Recommendations

• Remark on factorials that are products of factorials
• On the Greatest and Least Prime Factors of n !+1
• On a problem of Erdős involving the largest prime factor of n
• On the equation \(n! = a_1! a_2! \cdots a_t!\)

Cited in

(4)

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3851186 (Why is no real title available?)
• Waring problem with factorials
• \(\lambda \)-factorials of \(n\)
• Remark on factorials that are products of factorials

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