Philip Hall's ``rather curious'' formula for abelian \(p\)-groups (Q677423)

The paper contains a new, more transparent and more ``group theoretical'' proof of the celebrated result of \textit{Ph. Hall} [Comment. Math. Helv. 11, 126-129 (1938; Zbl 0019.39705)] asserting that for a fixed prime \(p\) and for the sums running over all finite abelian \(p\)-groups, one has \(\sum\frac{1}{|G|}=\sum\frac{1}{|\Aut(G)|}\). This new proof blends together some old counting arguments of Ph. Hall with an identity related to subgroup growth and with an identity of Euler.