Differences of Harmonic Numbers and the abc-Conjecture

MaRDI QIDQ5223057zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Natalia da Silva, Serban Raianu, Hector Salgado

Publication date 5 July 2019

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.00620, https://journals.calstate.edu/pump/article/view/147

zbMATH Keywords

Dirichlet's theoremexponential Diophantine equationharmonic numbersmodular arithmetic\(abc\)-conjectureGersonides' theorem

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Congruences; primitive roots; residue systems (11A07) Primes (11A41) Counting solutions of Diophantine equations (11D45)

Abstract: Our main source of inspiration was a talk by Hendrik Lenstra on harmonic numbers, which are numbers whose only prime factors are two or three. Gersonides proved 675 years ago that one can be written as a difference of harmonic numbers in only four ways: 2-1, 3-2, 4-3, and 9-8. We investigate which numbers other than one can or cannot be written as a difference of harmonic numbers and we look at their connection to the $abc$-conjecture. We find that there are only eleven numbers less than 100 that cannot be written as a difference of harmonic numbers (we call these $ndh$-numbers). The smallest $ndh$-number is 41, which is also Euler's largest lucky number and is a very interesting number. We then show there are infinitely many $ndh$-numbers, some of which are the primes congruent to $41$ modulo $48$. For each Fermat or Mersenne prime we either prove that it is an $ndh$-number or find all ways it can be written as a difference of harmonic numbers. Finally, as suggested by Lenstra in his talk, we interpret Gersonides' theorem as "The $abc$-conjecture is true on the set of harmonic numbers" and we expand the set on which the $abc$-conjecture is true by adding to the set of harmonic numbers the following sets (one at a time): a finite set of $ndh$-numbers, the infinite set of primes of the form $48k+41$, the set of Fermat primes, and the set of Mersenne primes.

Recommendations

• Abel's lemma and identities on harmonic numbers
• Certain congruences for harmonic numbers
• A conjecture on Abelian difference sets
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• On \(q\)-congruences involving harmonic numbers
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• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 6302887
• Several congruences involving harmonic numbers
• Several congruences involving harmonic numbers

Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3823895 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3523640 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2115025 (Why is no real title available?)
• Factorizations of 𝑏ⁿ±1, 𝑏=2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 Up to High Powers
• On \(p^x-q^y=c\) and related three term exponential Diophantine equations with prime bases.
• On the equations \(p^x - b^y = c\) and \(a^x + b^y = c^z\)
• Primary cyclotomic units and a proof of Catalans conjecture
• Primes at a Glance
• Small Two-Variable Exponential Diophantine Equations

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