A sharp upper bound for the sum of reciprocals of least common multiples (Q2179851)

Let \((a_i)\) be a strictly increasing sequence of positive integers. Then \textit{D. Borwein} [Can. Math. Bull. 21, 117--118 (1978; Zbl 0376.10003)] proved, confirming a conjecture of Erdős, that \[ \sum_{i=1}^{n-1}\frac1{\text{lcm}(a_i,a_{i+1})}\le1-\frac1{2^{n-1}}, \] with equality holding if and only if \(a_i=2^{i-1}\). The author of the paper under review considers a generalization of this result, namely the problem of estimating the sums \[ S_{n,k}=\sum_{i=1}^{n-k}\frac1{\text{lcm}(a_i,a_{i+k})}. \] For \(k=2, 3\), he obtains optimal upper bounds for \(S_{n,k}\), as well as characterizations of the corresponding sequences \((a_i)\). These results comprise too many cases to reproduce here, but, by way of a sample result, we state the simplest estimate \[ S_{2m,2}\le\frac76\Bigl(1-\frac1{2^{m-1}}\Bigr). \]