Proofs of power sum and binomial coefficient congruences via Pascal's identity

DOI10.4169/AMER.MATH.MONTHLY.118.06.549MaRDI QIDQ3012020zbMATH OpenOpenAlexDBLPWikidataFDO

Authors Kieren MacMillan, Jonathan Sondow

Publication date 30 June 2011

Published in The American Mathematical Monthly (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.0076

zbMATH Keywords

congruence for power sumscongruence for sums of binomial coefficients

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Factorials, binomial coefficients, combinatorial functions (05A10) Combinatorial identities, bijective combinatorics (05A19) Congruences; primitive roots; residue systems (11A07) Binomial coefficients; factorials; (q)-identities (11B65)

Abstract: A frequently cited theorem says that for n > 0 and prime p, the sum of the first p n-th powers is congruent to -1 modulo p if p-1 divides n, and to 0 otherwise. We survey the main ingredients in several known proofs. Then we give an elementary proof, using an identity for power sums proven by Pascal in 1654. An application is a simple proof of a congruence for certain sums of binomial coefficients, due to Hermite and Bachmann.

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Cited in

(9)

• SUMS OF POWERS WITH Fk NUMBERS
• Polynomial extension of Fleck's congruence
• Moser's mathemagical work on the equation \(1^k+2^k+\ldots+(m-1)^k=m^k\)
• The Zagier modification of Bernoulli numbers and a polynomial extension. I
• On binomial coefficients modulo squares of primes
• Combinatorial Proofs of Pascal's Formula for Sums of Powers of the Integers
• Solutions of the congruence \(1+2^{f(n)}+\ldots +n^{f(n)}\equiv 0 \pmod n\)
• Power-sum denominators
• A reformulation technique to solve polynomial optimization problems with separable objective functions of bounded integer variables

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